Mid-exam questions for LC.

The idea of this document is that everybody contributes to get the best answers possible :)

Q1: Are leaders born or not? What is your opinion? What is the relationship with
communication? Why is leadership relevant to communication?

● “Discussions on leadership often come back to one question: Is a leader born or

developed? In other words, can individuals learn to be leaders? The short answer is
yes they can: “​Organizations and individuals can indeed directly influence the
quality and the quantity of their leadership​. . . . It is not a matter of whether
leaders are born or made. They are born and made.” However, most do have to
work at it and becoming a leader can require practice and depends on actions:
“Leadership is not something that is gained because of birth or tenure but rather
something that is practiced in every moment of opportunity. It is truly 20 percent
technique (tools, methods) and 80 percent actions (behaviors).” Avolio argues that, in
particular, “transformational leadership skills can indeed be developed.” Leadership
Communication is devoted to helping individuals develop as
transformational leaders by mastering the most important capability they need, the
ability to communicate effectively.” (book, p.5)

● Relationship to Communication​ → effective leadership depends on effective

communication, that ability to connect to others and, through that connection, guide,
direct, motivate, and inspire. Good communication skills enable, foster, and create
the understanding and trust necessary to encourage others to follow a leader.
Without effective communication, leaders accomplish little. Without effective
communication, a leader is not a leader. (book p.5)

● good communication skills are what companies are looking for when hiring and
without them, candidates cannot get in the door much less advance to a leadership
position. (book p.6)

● Effective leadership communication requires the ability to anticipate the potential

interruptions in the transmission of the message, appreciate the context, understand
the audience, select the right medium,and craft messages that allow the meaning to
reach the specific receiver as intended.(book p.7)

● Some believe that leaders are born! But True leaders have the capacity to develop a
big vision—one that inspires and motivates their team—and turn it into reality. This
requires not only a passion for the vision, but the clarity to communicate it and the
intelligence and experience necessary to execute it. As legendary American football
coach Vince Lombardi once said: “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are
made just like anything else, through hard work.
Q2: About audience! Communicator, audience and message. What is the purpose of
analyzing (p.29)?

● Leaders need to consider their purpose, strategy, and structure early

in the communication process. Strategy consists of two actions: (1) determining
the purpose, goals, or vision of what we want to achieve and (2) developing how best
to achieve the purpose, goals, or vision. When developing a communication strategy,
we first determine exactly what our ​goal or purpose​ is in communicating with our
audience, and then we decide ​how best to accomplish that purpose​ and connect
with that audience. (book p.28)

● Of course, despite our best efforts to create a strategy and consider our audience, we
may still encounter​ breakdowns on the receiver’s end​. These can occur for many
reasons, such as the receiver misreading the message, not understanding it, or not
agreeing with it or at least not thinking he or she agrees with it. Effective strategy with
thorough ​audience analysis allows us to anticipate​ and more likely avoid even
these types of ​interferences​. (book p.28)

● “We first need to consider the context for our presentation. What is most important
about what is going on in our organization, in the local area or region, in our market
or industry, or even on the broader stage—in the world—that will be first in the minds
of our audience? There might be an event or something happening to which we
might want to refer to help frame our presentation, or we might need to establish
some background for our presentation to provide the context that the audience needs
to understand our ​purpose​. We also need to establish a clearly defined purpose.
What is most important for us to ​achieve in the presentation​? What do we want our
audience to do in response to what we say? These questions will lead us logically
into the analysis of our audience (book p.146)”.

● The more we know about our audience, the more at ease we should be in presenting
to them. At a minimum, for any presentation, we should be able to answer the
following questions:
1. What is my primary purpose in delivering this presentation to this audience?
2. Who is my primary audience? Will there be secondary audiences affected by what
I say?
3. What is motivating the audience to attend or participate and how do I motivate
them to listen to me?
4. What do I expect the audience to do as a result of hearing my presentation?
5. How do I expect them to feel?

● In professional communication, we usually have one of four overarching

goals:
• To​ inform​ —transferring facts, data, or information to someone.
• To ​influence or persuade ​—motivating someone or convincing him
or her to feel, believe, or act in some way.
 • To​ instruct​ —instructing someone in a process, procedure, or policy.
• To ​engage​ —involving someone in a collaborative exchange of ideas. (book p.29)

Q3: How to put tone in writing? Explain about your attitude. Readers benefit, positive
emphasis. Give some samples, e.g. how to reject your boss? How to say “yes” to your
customer?

We know that leaders lead and inspire others to action through their use of language, the
words they speak and write.

Bad example of layoff:

Good example of layoff:

 ● The e-mail in Exhibit 3.1 shows no concern for the audience. First, note the subject
line. Yes, “layoff” is direct, but it is also cold and uncaring. Second, the e-mail begins
with the harsh statement that John’s job has been “abolished” and then ends with an
attempt to soften the
brutal effect by thanking John for his “efforts.” The thank-you seems insincere and
even out of place in this otherwise cold, bad-news note. Third, note the use of
passive voice, which contributes to the distancing, uncaring tone: “will be abolished,”
“will be authorized,” and “have been most appreciated.” These distance Mr. Cole
from his audience
and from the actions. Finally, that this message was sent in an e-mail makes the tone
seem even more uncaring.

Positive emphasis (module 7)

Positive emphasis means focusing on the positive rather than the negative aspects of a
situation.
1) Avoid negative words with a negative connection (e.g. damage/delay)
2) State info positively. Focus on what the reader can do rather on what you won’t or can’t
let the reader do (e.g. good, simple)
3) Justify negative info by giving a reason or linking it to a reader benefit.
4) If the negative is truly unimportant, omit it.
5) Put the negative info in the middle and present it compactly
è A writer don’t need to use all of the techniques, but only the ones appropriate in
the situation
Hidden negative words are words that are not negative in themselves, but become negative
in context
The desired ​tone f​ or business writing is business like, but not arrogant, polite but not
grovelling. Some guidelines.
1) Be aware of the power implication of the words you use
2) When the stakes are low, be straight forward
3) When bad news, consider hedging your statement.

Reader benefits (module 8)

· ​Good reader benefits are adopted to the audience, based on intrinsic, rather than
extrinsic advantages, supported by clear logic and exploited in adequate detail, and
phased in you-attitude. To create reader benefits:
o ​Identify feelings, fears, and needs that may motivate your reader
o ​Show how the reader can meet his or her needs with the features of the
policy or product
· Psychological description -> create scenario -> reader can picture themselves using
your product/service and enjoy the benefits.
· Use intrinsic benefits and benefits you can develop most fully
· Different audience may require need to stress different benefits
-> Reader benefits need to be stressed in you-attitude.
· In ​informative messages:​ reader benefits give reason to comply with the policies you
announce and suggest that the policies are good ones.
· In ​persuasive messages:​ reader benefits give reasons to act and help oncome reader
resistance
· In ​negative messages​: don’t use reader benefits​.

Q4: About graphics (refers to modul 25). Table, pie chart, bar chart. How to make a
good bar chart?

Does is matter which kind of visual I use?

Every visual should contain 6 components​:
1. A title that tells the story that the visual shows
2. Clear indication of what the data are.
3. Clearly labeled units
4.Labels or legends identifying axes, colors, symbols and so on
5. The source of data, if you created the visual from data someone else gathered and
compiled.
6. The source of the visual, if you reproduce the visual someone else created.
Q5: About the individual presentations. Pick one: Which one was the best
presentation and which one was the worst? What was the weakness of the speaker
from an audience point of view.

· ​ Layout skills aren't really present/existing -> don’t be to slide depended

· Talk to people, not the slides
· Thank people for questions
· Stand in the middle of the class
· Prepare well -> improve presentation skills
· Learn to manage your nerves while presenting
· Could be more effective if being taped and then analysed, so the presenter can also
see his nonverbal actions

Best: Lukas
· Spoke free, in good language
· Catch the attention from the audience, did manage to make the presentation enjoyable
for the audience
· Had an interesting topic -> 4Oceans, which he related to Indonesia
· Talked in a good tempo and stood in the middle while presenting