Nov 5, 2025 - Communication Makes for Great Leaders
Communication and Leadership
November 5, 2025
Hi,
Communication & Leadership: The Heart of Successful Leadership
To be a complete and successful leader, you must be effective in communicating with all internal stakeholders. By building strong relationships throughout the organization, opportunities are better taken advantage of, solutions to challenges are found more quickly, and an environment of common purpose is created around shared goals.
In today’s dynamic organizations, leaders are no longer simply task-masters: they are connectors, communicators and culture-builders. At the heart of this shift is the recognition that communication and leadership are inseparable. When a leader speaks and listens with intention, they build relationships that bind people together, align efforts, and unlock performance.
Listen. True listening is more than hearing words, it is about understanding the person behind them. Research shows that active-empathetic listening by supervisors is strongly linked to higher employee engagement. Leaders who listen are not passive; they invite perspective, recognize voice, and draw out the best from their teams. Listening builds trust because it signals that the individual matters.
Be Authentic. Authentic leadership, with leaders who are genuine, transparent and consistent, has been shown to foster trust and flourishing in their teams. When leaders bring their true selves, they free others to do the same and create a shared sense of integrity and purpose.
Build Trust. Trust is the currency of leadership. When team members trust their leader, the pace of teamwork, problem-solving and innovation accelerates. Leaders who communicate clearly and consistently help develop trust. Without trust, clarity fades, feedback is withheld, and goals become fragmented.
Clarity. A leader’s job is to make sense of complexity and articulate vision, expectation and direction in a way that others can digest and act on. Clear communication ensures that messages are understood, and goals are shared. Research links effective internal communication with improved organizational performance.
Self Awareness & Being Accessible. Leaders who know their strengths and blind spots, and who make themselves reachable, invite more open dialogue and build relational access. A role-model who is visible, open to questions and approachable creates a culture of connectivity.
Be Empowering. Communication is not just about transmitting information, it’s about creating conditions for others to act. When leaders delegate freely, share decision-making and encourage feedback, they are empowering. The result, people feel responsible, invested, and aligned with shared goals.
Receive and Act on Feedback. Effective leadership communication is two-way. It involves receiving input, interpreting it, responding to it, and making visible adjustments. Leaders who act on feedback signal that voices matter and that the organization is adaptive and responsive.
In short: A leader who listens with authenticity, builds trust through clarity, remains self-aware and accessible, empowers others and actively incorporates feedback lays the groundwork for strong relationships throughout the organisation. Those relationships become the engine of solution-finding, opportunity-seizing and purpose-driven collective performance.
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Is there a challenge at work that’s been keeping you up at night, maybe a tough relationship, a big decision, or simply the weight of too much on your plate? Coaching can be a powerful way to step back, get clarity, and move forward with confidence.
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Here are three articles for further reading:
1. Harvard Business School Online - “8 Essential Leadership Communication Skills”
This blog-article covers practical communication skills for leaders: adapting your style, showing empathy, leveraging nonverbal cues, etc. Harvard Business School Online
2. Birkman - “Effective Communication in Leadership”
An easy-to-read piece about how great leaders create safe environments for questions, provide clarity and direction, and build a culture of trust through communication. Birkman
3. Forbes Coaches Council - “Say Less, Lead More”
A recent article that offers a concise framework (P-E-T: Pause, Edit, Talk) for senior leaders to streamline messaging and lead more clearly during constant change. pulse.forbescoach
How to Develop People-First Leaders in Today’s Workplace - By Nancy Fonseca
Key Traits of a People-First Leader
While leadership styles vary, people-first leaders tend to share several common traits. These qualities can be observed and developed across all levels of an organization:
· They listen first. Employees feel respected when their opinions are heard. Leaders who actively listen gather better information, make stronger decisions, and build credibility.
· They communicate transparently. Whether it’s sharing updates or explaining the “why” behind a decision, people-first leaders focus on clarity and honesty. As noted in Mastering Trust: 5 Essential Traits of Trusted Leaders in the Workplace, transparency—especially when it includes both good and bad news shared with empathy, is a vital behavior that builds trust and earns long-term credibility (Great Place to Work Canada, 2023).
· They take accountability. These leaders model responsibility by owning their mistakes and recognizing the contributions of others.
· They care about well-being. People-first leaders are mindful of workload, boundaries, and mental health. They help others succeed without sacrificing their personal capacity.
· They create equitable experiences. Everyone should feel they belong at work. These leaders work to remove barriers and ensure fairness in how people are treated, developed, and recognized. As emphasized in Leadership and Trust: Strategies for Credibility, Respect, and Fairness, trust-based cultures start with leadership that consistently models fairness and integrity (Great Place to Work Canada, 2023).
Moving from Intent to Action
People-first leadership doesn’t happen by accident. It takes deliberate effort, both from individual leaders and the organizations that support them. Here’s where to start:
1. Start with data
Understanding how employees experience leadership is essential. Regular employee surveys can uncover gaps in trust, communication, and recognition. For example, if employees don’t feel fairly treated, or if managers are perceived as distant, that feedback signals where support is needed.
Great Place To Work® employee survey data shows that leadership trust is one of the strongest predictors of employee retention and engagement. This makes it a critical area for improvement.
Further, when asked whether they could ask management any reasonable question and get a straight answer, 88% of employees at Certified™ organizations said yes, compared to only 62% in a typical Canadian workplace. And when it comes to approachability, nearly 92% of employees at top workplaces say their management is approachable and easy to talk to, significantly higher than the 66% reported in typical Canadian organizations. These differences aren’t abstract, they directly reflect the presence or absence of people-first leadership.
2. Invest in manager development
Many people move into leadership roles without formal training. They’re expected to manage others based on past performance, not necessarily on people skills. Providing clear expectations, ongoing coaching, and leadership training tied to workplace culture can change that.
Programs that focus on communication, inclusion, and values-based decision-making help leaders better support their teams and themselves.
3. Recognize what works
Celebrating people-first behavior reinforces its value. Recognition can be formal, through awards, promotions, or public appreciation, or informal, like a thank-you for handling a difficult conversation with empathy.
When leaders see that their efforts to support people are acknowledged, they’re more likely to continue those behaviors. And when employees see those traits rewarded, it encourages future leaders to follow the same path.
Fast Company highlights how this can shape culture: “Empowering all of our employees through thoughtful action, reflective of their feedback, has been key to our success” (Fast Company, 2023).
4. Define and scale your leadership expectations
Organizations with a clear, shared understanding of leadership are better equipped to hire and promote effectively. This can include identifying the behaviors that reflect your values and communicating them through performance expectations.
One example is the concept of the For All™ leader, which describes leaders who consistently create positive experiences for all team members, not just a select few. This approach helps embed fairness, consistency, and inclusion into how leadership is practiced and measured.
Coaching works.
It will make you and
your team better.
Contact me
Phone: (778) 938-1003
Email: rob.murray@shaw.ca