Leadership Communication as Citizenship / Edition 1

by John O. Burtis, Paul David Turman

Overview

Leadership Communication as Citizenship explains the communication skills you need to help construct effective experiences for an organization, team, or community, whether in the role of doer, follower, guide, manager, or leader. It articulates the important role that communication plays in helping to co-construct group, organizational, or community direction. Effective leadership communication is explored in the context of citizenship, emphasizing the opportunities and responsibilities we each face for helping groups that matter to us, whether a business, a religious institution, or a government entity.

Throughout the book, authors John O. Burtis and Paul D. Turman relay a compelling, readable story about how to create more successful organizations and communities through direction-giving stories, regardless of one's role in the group.

Key Features

• Explains the daily interplay between communication, citizenship, and direction-giving, thus challenging readers to realize the power they have to give direction in their own team, organization, or community
• Focuses on common communication skills involved across seemingly disparate leadership contexts—from working in teams to communities to social movements or elsewhere—to help people succeed in the setting in which they find themselves
• Explores times of crisis and use of leadership vision, discussing how direction-giving approaches may require adjustment in these times of extreme opportunity, threat, or change.

Intended Audience: Leadership Communication as Citizenship is appropriate for anyone who wants to make a difference in their team, organization, or community, and for such courses as Leadership, Organizational and Group Communication, Industrial/ Organizational Psychology, Persuasion, and Management.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412955003
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	11/06/2009
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

John O. Burtis (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is a Professor in the Communication Studies Department at the University of Northern Iowa. He has taught courses in leadership, management, group communication, argumentation, persuasion, and communication theory at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has been a consultant, trainer, and speaker on related subjects in both the private and public sectors. He has been the director of the Concordia Leadership Center and of the West Central Minnesota Leadership Program and the head of the Communication Studies department at the University of Northern Iowa. He has been the Director of Forensics at Kansas State University and Concordia College, where students in the programs won numerous individual and team championships in speech or debate including more than twenty national championships.

Paul D. Turman (Ph D, University of Nebraska) is the Vice President for Research & Economic Development for the South Dakota Board of Regents. His scholarly research focuses on the role of communication in the coach-athlete and parent-child relationship within a sport context. Prior to his time with the Board of Regents, he taught courses in communication and sport at the University of Northern Iowa. His scholarly work has been published in journals such as Communication Education, the Journal of Applied Communication Research, the Journal of Family Communication, and Communication Studies.

Table of Contents

UNIT I: UNDERSTAND YOUR POWER AS A DIRECTION-GIVER
1. So, You Want Other People to Work Well Together?
Groups Can Create a Community, Calm a Complex Organization, or Move Millions
Grouping, Group Direction, and Direction-Giving Are Human Responses to Exigencies
Direction-Giving Types Include the Work of a Doer, Follower, Guide, Manager, and Leader
Everyone Has the Obligation to Help His or Her Group to Thrive: The Social Contract of Citizenship
2. Distinguish Between Three Direction-Giving Options: Doing, Following, and Guiding
Specific Exigencies, Credentials, and Competencies Frame Each Type of Direction-Giver
Giving Direction as a Doer Requires Competence
Credentialing as a Doer Requires You to Accomplish Something Competently
Communicating Competently Blends Your Act as a Doer Into the Group's Needs
Giving Direction as a Follower Requires Affiliative Receptivity
A Direction-Giver's Initiative Creates an Exigency for a Follower
Credentialing as a Follower Requires Showing You Offer an Able and Desirable Affiliation
Communicating Competently Blends Your Followership With a Direction-Giver's Efforts
Giving Direction as a Guide Requires Credibility
Every Group Needs Direction at Many Points in Time, Creating the Guideship Exigency
Credentialing as a Guide Requires You to Create and Impression of Credibility
Communicating Competently, Your Guideship Ought to Take Care With a Group's Attentions
In Conclusion
3. Understand That Other Direction-Giving Options May Be Needed: Managing or Leading Well
There Are Many Names for Leadership: Definitions Too
Giving Direction as a Manager Requires the Ability to Marshal Resources
The Odious, the Complex, and the Everlasting Provide Exigencies for a Manager
Credentialing as a Manager Is Based in the Stories You and Others Tell of Your Experience
Doing and Interpreting Your Management Work for the Group Requires a Variety of Skills
Giving Direction as a Leader Requires Articulating a Group-Transformative Vision
A System-Threatening Crisis or Opportunity Provides the Exigency for Leadership
Credentialing to Be Seen by Others as a Leader Requires You to Articulate a Salient Vision
Your Effective Leadership Is Not Necessarily Tied to Specific Communication Skills
Beware Easy Misconceptions About These Five Types of Direction-Givers
In Conclusion
UNIT II: DEVELOP YOUR OWN STRATEGIES FOR GIVING DIRECTION WELL
4. Use Leadership Theory and Research to Prepare Yourself to Give Direction
The Traits Perspective Focuses on Who You Are to Explain your Effectiveness
Developing Emotional Intelligence and Resilience May Matter More Than Your IQ
Self-Monitoring and Rhetorical Sensitivity Orient You to the Resources Around You
Situational, Styles, and Contingency Perspectives Focus on Behavioral Choices You Make
Great Leaders During Times of Crisis and Hemphill's Work Show That Situation Matters
The Styles Perspective Says Pick the Right Way to Treat Those With Whom You Group
The Contingency Perspective Says You Need to Adjust to Recurring "What Ifs" of Grouping
The Functional Perspective Focuses on What You Can Do for Your Group
Benne and Sheats Say Every Group Must Serve Task, Relational, and Individual Functions
Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid Says You Need to Balance Those Functions
Your Grouping Choices Also Need to Earn You at Least Once Process Prize From Grouping
Explicit and Implicit Theories of Effective Grouping and Direction-Giving Are in Play
In Conclusion
5. Develop a Framework and Position Yourself for Giving Direction
A Direction-Giving Framework Should Have a Philosophy, Exemplar Model, and Guidelines
Taylor's Scientific Management Is One Framework for Giving Direction Well
Mayo's Hawthorne Effect Shows the Need for a Different Framework
Develop Your Own Effectiveness Framework for Each Type of Direction-Giving You Provide
Your Philosophy Should Put Your Values Into Your Framework and Then Into Action
Your Exemplars Provide Aspirational Stories and a Sense of What "the Best" Can Be
Your Guidelines Animate Your Philosophy and Exemplars in Your Own Direction-Giving
Position Yourself as a Key Direction-Giver in the Story of Your Group
A Process of Residues Helps Us Decide on Whom We Will Focus Our Attention
Take Stock of the Credentials You Have and What Can You Do to Help Your Group Thrive
Recurring Types of Situations Can Help Put Context to Your Direction-Giving Preparations
Some Advice That May Be Useful as You Position Yourself
In Conclusion
UNIT III: DEVELOP YOUR COMMUNICATION SKILLS TO ENHANCE YOUR DIRECTION-GIVING
6. Figure Out How to Communicate Effectively
Communication Is a Tool Used to Transfer Information and a Process for Making Meaning
Accurate Transfer of Information Requires Fidelity
Making Meaning Involves Finding the Utility Involved
People Communicate for Purposes of Inquiry, to Influence Others, and to Build Relationships
Inquiry Is the Imperative to Make Sense of What is Happening to You
Influence Is the Imperative to Get Others to See Things Your Way or to Do What You Want
Relationship Is the Imperative to Have Social Contact and to Get Along With Others
Attaining a Symbolic Convergence of Terms, Meanings, and Stories Requires Effort and Skill
Create Messages That Gain Attention, Enhance Understanding, and Encourage Identification
Receive Messages Reflectively, Oriented Toward Understanding Ideas and Finding Utility
In Conclusion
7. Shape Effective Experiences and Expectations for Citizenship in Your Group
Help Shape Stories of Effective Group Experiences for Your Group
A Human Experience Is a Constructed Understanding of What Is Meaningful
Stories of Past, Present, and Future Experiences Are How You Give Direction to Your Group
Constitutive Rhetoric Is How You Co-Construct a Sense of Your Group and of "The Others "
Help Shape Stories of Experience That Create an Expectation of Citizenship in Your Group
Citizenship Experience Stories Stimulate Participation, Criticism, and Reasoned Conformity
How Groups Perpetuate Themselves Shapes the Experience of Citizen-Members
Play Your Part as a Citizen of Your Group
In Conclusion
UNIT IV: USE STORIES TO UNITE YOUR GROUP'S EFFORTS
8. Help Shape the Story of Your Organization, Team, or Community
You Can Use Stories to Unite Your Group and to Give It Direction
Find Coherence in Co-Constructed Stories of Your Group's Experience
Narrative Provides a Potent Tool for Shaping Effective Group Experiences
Seek and Shape Stories That Show or Start Something Special in Your Group
Making Accounts, Sensemaking, and Defining Stories Are Foundations of Narrative
Characterization, Ideographs, and Rhetorical Depiction Are Potent Forms of Narrative
The Master Narrative Is the Overarching Story of Your Group's Experience
Create Coherence in Memorable Messages, Critical Incidents, Teaching Tales, and Nuggets
Figure Out What Others Will Hear in the Experience Stories You Tell and Help Shape
In Conclusion
9. Develop the Framing Skills Needed by Every Direction-Giver
Framing Is Basic to All Communication: Your Frames Shape Your Direction-Giving Accounts
Frames, Like Definitions, Are How We Attach Meaning to Things
Frames Show Motives, Shape Experience, and Provide Authoritative Weight in the Group
Develop the Framing Skills You Need to Use to Be Effective as a Direction-Giver
Naming, Framing, and Blaming Are Basic Aspects of the Process for Making Meanings
Frame Your Group's Purgatory Puddle, Way/Process, Vision/Outcome, and Savior Complex
Claiming and Taming Are Elaborated Constructions of What Is Meaningful
In Conclusion
10. Leadership Vision Can Be a Crisis-Based Direction-Giving Story
Do You Need Vision as a Planning Tool or Do You Need a Vision that Transforms Your Group?
Are You Prepared to Give Direction During a Crisis?
Vision/Outcome Represents All Your Group Products and Purposes
Conceptions of Vision Range From Low- to High-Intensity Forms of Direction-Giving Action
What Is the Relationship Between a Vision and a Direction-Giver?
Crisis Is Different Than the Typical Pitfalls and Problems You Face in Every Group
Rhetorical Resources (and Your Responses Should) Vary Across the Circumstances of Crisis
You Can Prepare for Crisis That Resemble Fires Needing to Be Put Out
You Should Understand Direction-Giving Communications During Transformative Crisis
Do Not Misuse Crisis: From Mistakes to Faux Crisis, False Pretenses, and Manipulations
In Conclusion