You are the Chief Communications Officer

I have a CEO friend who says that he is going to have these words put on his tombstone: “Damn it, people, talk to each other!”

I get it. I can tell you that in all my years of leadership and advising leaders, the biggest messes and the most pain has been created when no one took responsibility for communicating.

Usually, people only realize their communication failures after the fact.

The CEO says, “I didn’t know she was unhappy.”

The family member says at the funeral, “Why didn’t anyone talk to Aunt Christy?”

The Colonel says, “Why didn’t someone tell me about these numbers before we mobilized?”

The staff member says, “I’m quitting because I don’t know what the heck we are trying to achieve here.”

And so it goes. I can name a hundred more examples.

Here is the simple lesson for you. Communication is always the leader’s job. Hear me on this. It is your responsibility to make sure the right things get said the right way. You can’t farm this out and you can’t move this down the list of your priorities.

To put this in other terms, if you are the senior leader, then you are the Chief Communications Officer of your firm, no matter how much you might want to leave this to HR or PR or that chatty VP of Advancement.

So, here are some perhaps surprising steps for you to take towards excellence in this area.

1. Deal with your Fear – You’d be surprised at how many people fail to communicate because of fear about communication that arises from their past. “Mom and Dad argued all the time.” “I told that principal about that situation and it backfired on me. I won’t tell anyone anything disturbing again.” That kind of thing. Ponder whatever might be blocking you inwardly from being the communicator, the confronter you need to be.
2. Learn some skills – I once took a counseling class in which the instructor taught me how to lower my voice, look people in the eye, lean forward with my elbows on my knees, draw on genuine inner compassion, and choose words meant to comfort and not incite. That class not only made me a better counselor, but eventually a man unafraid to confront and initiate difficult conversations where needed. Skills help. Get some. Books, videos, and courses abound.
3. Develop CommRadar – A good leader must have a nose for communication problems. Work to develop radar for CommSnarls. (This is all language I’ve made up, by the way. Feel free to steal it!) A CommSnarl is any problem created primarily by bad or absent communication. You have to develop CommRadar for CommSnarls so you can engage in a CommFix. This will take some time initially, but let me tell you it will save you so much time and money ultimately that it will be more than worth the investment.
4. Prioritize Communication in your hiring – Communication is primarily your job, but you’ll have less to do in this area if those around you are good communicators who aren’t afraid to confront or have the tough conversation. You have to build a culture of healthy confrontation in your firm and this means you have to hire good confronters.

Okay. You are smart. You can reason the rest of this out. My main goal is to embed in your mind that if you are a normal leader in a normal firm, half your problems are communication problems. Therefore, go develop CommRadar for CommSnarls so you can engineer really wise CommFixes.