It may sound tardy to review a book that came out years ago. But I bought this book on impulse - spotted it by chance in a bookshop and only recently have I discovered how practical this wonderful book is. And it's not only me. I've just received an email from a leading "communication coach" who spends his time working with some of Australia's top CEOs. Larry Robertson says "it articulates far more eruditely what I try to put across to my clients".

But why is this topic relevant? What's CEO communication got to do with communicators? My research shows that usually the most cost-effective way to improve internal communication is by improving executive communication. Results on executive communication are usually poor, and executive communication correlates most strongly with overall satisfaction with communication.

The authors are former VPs of Fleishman-Hillard, a leading communication consulting firm. The 13 comprehensive chapters (with dozens of useful references) are organised into four parts covering 10 essential roles of leaders.

The leadership agenda: leaders as communicators, critical issues.
The leader as community developer: meaning-maker, storyteller, trust builder.
The leader as navigator: direction setter, transition pilot, linking agent.
The leader as renewal champion: critic, provocateur, learning advocate, and innovation coach.

The last chapter is the most valuable of all. This has two quizzes to check how well your communication reflects the key messages. Providing you buy a book for each leader, I don't see why you can't use the first quiz, not only for the leader to do a self-assessment, but also for subordinates or followers to assess the how well the leader is handling the 10 essential leadership roles. Better still, ask whether the behaviour is evidenced frequently, often, sometimes, rarely or never, and then allocate scores of 4,3,2,1,0 respectively for each. You can then total the scores for each section: 13-16 is excellent, 9-12 good, 5-8 poor, and less than 5 highlights a blind spot.

Highly recommended for all leaders and communicators who support them.

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