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eye on > organization communications:
Giving Voice to Leadership
In his classic novel The Journey to the East, 20th-century German poet and novelist Hermann Hesse proposes a new way of thinking about leadership as captured in the servant Leo. As Hermann Hesse’s protagonist H.H. embarks with a group known as “the League” on a spiritual pilgrimage, H.H. becomes enraptured with Leo whom he describes as “an unaffected man [who] had something so pleasing, so unobtrusively winning about him that everyone loved him.” H.H. observes that Leo did his work happily and “was never seen except when needed – in fact, an ideal servant.” Leo’s sudden disappearance from the group early in the story reveals that he was more than a well-liked, happy-go-lucky guy – Leo, as it turns out, embodied the passion H.H. and others felt for their amazing journey. Without Leo serving as the glue and model for the group, H.H. and the others experience confusion and dissension and eventually lose their sense of purpose and disband.
What is Great Leadership?
From reading Hermann Hesse’s novel, one might conclude that leadership is dependent largely on how others perceive the leader rather than on any title, trappings or given authority the leader possesses. Robert K. Greenleaf, founder of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership, offers this take on Hesse’s book: “This story clearly says that the great leader is seen as servant first because that was what he was, deep down inside.” In other words, it was Leo’s servant attitude, not his title or position in the organization, that garnered the group’s respect and loyalty and contributed to its success. While your organization’s CEO may not employ Leo’s servant leadership style, most persons nevertheless would probably agree that effective leadership is critical to lending focus to a group and providing energy and passion for its mission.
Perception is Reality
If one thinks about the increasing ways that businesses must depend on others for technology, transportation, intellectual capital, financial capital, marketing and more, it is logical to think that internal and external constituents’ perception of leadership, management, talent of its people and competitiveness can also have a significant impact on an organization’s success. In his article, “The Leadership Advantage,” Warren Bennis, acclaimed author and founding chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California, noted in a recent third-party study that the stock price of companies perceived as being well led grew 900 percent over a 10-year period, compared to just 74 percent growth in companies perceived to lack good leadership. Thus, as we saw with Leo, the perception of effective leadership may in fact contribute directly to an organization’s performance.
As someone who is responsible for or has influence on corporate communications within your organization, you play an essential role in shaping stakeholder perceptions of your CEO and leadership team. Employees, customers, shareholders, members and suppliers all have a vested interest in your firm’s success, and savvy leaders will want to communicate with these stakeholders candidly and often to keep them in the information loop and build their trust.
Giving Voice to a CEO’s Example
There are many methods by which a CEO and leadership team can communicate to their stakeholder groups. Over the decades, corporate annual reports have provided CEOs with a popular and accessible platform for delivering messages about a company’s performance, strategies and vision. Annual reports have historically been mailed to a wide range of stakeholders and, therefore, are most successful as communications documents when they deliver the broadest possible message concerning financial performance, challenges, future opportunities and corporate culture.
Not coincidentally, those companies with longevity, good employee morale, satisfied customers and happy shareholders are led by individuals who deliver honest messages and display a willingness to get in the trenches with their teams to ensure growth and success. Consider J. Hyatt Brown, CEO of Daytona Beach-based Brown & Brown, a national insurance brokerage firm with revenues of over $785 million that consistently leads its peers in growth and profit margins and the entire insurance sector in shareholder return. Brown uses the company’s annual report to affirm the importance of its people and to reiterate their corporate values of hard work, accountability and passion. In his 2004 annual report to shareholders, Mr. Brown wrote, “We believe that Brown & Brown is 3% financial capital and 97% ‘people capital.’” Brown & Brown’s emphasis on life-long education and providing strong financial incentives for employees to meet corporate goals are ways in which the firm’s priority on people drive its success.
Similarly, CEO Robert E. Lowder of Montgomery, Alabama-based Colonial BancGroup, a regional bank holding company with assets of over $22 billion, has provided the vision, passion and hands-on leadership that have generated his company’s success. In 2005, a year when the S&P bank index fell 4.76%, Colonial achieved one-year total return to shareholders of over 15% as well as record net income and earnings. In 2004 – another record year for Colonial – Lowder wrote in his annual report message to shareholders, “We didn’t make our numbers through any tricks. We made our record earnings through the hard work of our people.” Mr. Lowder is, in fact, one of those people, as he is very involved in Colonial’s larger loan approval process to ensure that the bank maintains its industry-leading credit quality – a fact that has been mentioned in previous annual reports.
Whether it is a corporate annual report, executive speech or the company newsletter, communicators have an opportunity to give voice to those qualities of their leaders and their style of leadership that demonstrate their passion and commitment to their constituents. It is in revealing the values and true character of an organization’s leader that a communicator can build positive stakeholder perceptions and, thus, make the strongest contribution to her or his organization.
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