Human Communication As A Panacea To Leadership Problems
~Prince Eze Ugochukwu.

When we communicate as humans, we express our emotional state. We communicate our thoughts and emotions. We do so, through our body language and through our verbal language.

In todays world, burdened by numerous and divergent problems ranging from health, security, economic downturn etc, communication assumes a greater significance, as it helps people to reach mutually beneficial agreements.

Between a leader and those he govern, communication is a bridge to harmony.

Through human communication, a leader can find “points in common” with the lead. It allows parties to express what each wishes to say, it allows parties to listen to each other and thus helps to establish shared solutions.

A leader who wishes to make a positive impact, must develop skills of inter-personal communication. Skills are very important for every activity, and goes with attitude, which is a way or manner of applying a skill.

In order to succeed, a leader needs the instruments of assertiveness, empathy and feedback to achieve his set goals and objectives in governance.

An assertive leader is one who can deliver his message clearly, firmly, directly and respectfully.

A leader must always ask himself the following questions; What does the people need from me, what emotion are they feeling,  how do I feel about the situation of the people, and what communication channel is most appropriate to reach the people.

Through assertive communication, a leader can promote collaboration and teamwork, by allowing points of views to be expressed and make decisions collectively.

Often, a leader pays attention to technical issues of governance only. In other words, he tend to ignore the emotional state or mood of the governed and this can damage inter-personal relationship.

This is where empathy comes in. With empathetic listening, a leader can understand messages from his people, not only by paying close attention, but also with emotional understanding.

Many a time, those in authority inadvertently allow techinical issues of policies and programs to overwhelm them and make them to forget that people have different ways of thinking and acting.

Leaders are faced with daily conflicts of governance. There are natural tensions in human interactions. The solution lies in dialogue. Dialogue helps to remove obstacles by achieving understanding and making it possible for stakeholders to work together.

For any leader, dialogue comprises of the ability to communicate and the ability to listen. By talking, people come to understand each other, and by listening empathy is achieved.

A leader can through errors of his own, hinder empathy, thereby allienating himself from the people. This will occur when a leader ignores or does not pay attention to what the people are saying, or when he pretends to listen, but having his attention elsewhere, or when he listens to the aspects that interest him, ignoring others that are not relevant to him, or when a leader identifies only the technical aspects of work tasks, ignoring the emotional states or moods of the governed, and constantly imposing his authority as a leader.

These communication errors cause rejection, and distancing of others, thus weakening and breaking our interpersonal relationships.

On the other hand, feedbacks helps a leader to adjust better and makes him capable and able to direct, guide, teach and motivate the governed after receiving and analyzing messages from them.

For a good leader therefore, the pathway to success lies in the clarity of his message to his people, the respect that goes with it, how he pays attention to the emotions of his people, and how he digests information from the governed. If these are properly harnessed and applied, landmark achievements will be recorded by a leader.

Prince Eze Ugochukwu, writes from Nkwerre, Imo State.

Protecting The Reputation Of A Government And It’s Institutions~Prince Eze Ugochukwu.

The Reputation of any government has to do with it’s credibility, trustworthiness, responsibility and reliability.

For any government to succeed, it must build, maintain and protect a reputation. Government is a brand, and every brand has a reputation which can be tarnished.

A government that is desirous of  managing it’s reputation must have the ability to listen to what the people are saying, and find out what the opposition is up to. It must endeavour to respond to issues before they escalate into crisis, it must deliver on promises and be authentic, consistent, timely and show character at all times.

Reputation comes from the actions of government. It is what makes the people and stakeholders decide whether to trust government and its appointees. Here the behavior, communication and relationship between the government and the governed becomes crucial. This is because reputation is trust on the ability of government to deliver on its promises.

Appointees form a critical part of the reputation of any government. Firstly, how do the appointees behave. How do they interact with the stakeholders and the population at large, and secondly what kind of ambassadors are they in the building and maintaining of government’s reputation. Appointees must be conscious of their tone, style as well as attitude in their interface with the people.

In todays digital age, managing the reputation of government has become very troublesome, what; with everyone a publisher; with social media defining how governments are perceived; with the global reach and spread of negative stories. These have  made the audience much more powerful.

Governments need to be proactive in managing its reputation. It must identify potential problems and risks before they arise, it must also mitigate and respond appropriately when problems arise. Government must be empathetic and understanding to the demands of the people and build a community of fans and supporters bearing in mind the volatility and unpredictability of people’s opinions.

Like beauty, reputation is in the eyes of the beholder. So gaining the respect of the governed is critical. This can be achieved by creating positive media relationship with both local and national press, by engagement of social media influencers to help connect the policies and programs of government with the reading and listening public.

In doing this, a government must leverage on its best selling points to create a connection with the people. People support policies that touches their daily lives and wellbeing.This is the only thing that matters to the people and makes them engage the government. So government accomplishments must be openly, frankly and speedily communicated to the people to minimize damage.

Government communication is not only about the release of information to the press. Rather it is all about strategically crafting and presenting an image of government to help build a stronger reputation. Reputation is an asset that can be used as a defence to preserve the relationship with the governed.

Finally, a government must be able to holistically monitor its reputation by creating forums for interaction with the public, by going on fact finding missions into the local areas to understand what is happening, and by conducting independent opinion polls about peoples perception of the actvities of government.

Government should never under estimate the dangers and cost of a poor reputation. A reputation serves as a signal of the underlying qualities of a government. Investors value a government that enjoys good reputation. They place their trust in well regarded institutions.

Prince Eze Ugochukwu writes from Owerri. Imo State.

Protecting The Reputation Of A Government And It’s Institutions~Prince Eze Ugochukwu.

The Reputation of any government has to do with it’s credibility, trustworthiness, responsibility and reliability.

For any government to succeed, it must build, maintain and protect a reputation. Government is a brand, and every brand has a reputation which can be tarnished.

A government that is desirous of  managing it’s reputation must have the ability to listen to what the people are saying, and find out what the opposition is up to. It must endeavour to respond to issues before they escalate into crisis, it must deliver on promises and be authentic, consistent, timely and show character at all times.

Reputation comes from the actions of government. It is what makes the people and stakeholders decide whether to trust government and its appointees. Here the behavior, communication and relationship between the government and the governed becomes crucial. This is because reputation is trust on the ability of government to deliver on its promises.

Appointees form a critical part of the reputation of any government. Firstly, how do the appointees behave. How do they interact with the stakeholders and the population at large, and secondly what kind of ambassadors are they in the building and maintaining of government’s reputation. Appointees must be conscious of their tone, style as well as attitude in their interface with the people.

In todays digital age, managing the reputation of government has become very troublesome, what; with everyone a publisher; with social media defining how governments are perceived; with the global reach and spread of negative stories. These have  made the audience much more powerful.

Governments need to be proactive in managing its reputation. It must identify potential problems and risks before they arise, it must also mitigate and respond appropriately when problems arise. Government must be empathetic and understanding to the demands of the people and build a community of fans and supporters bearing in mind the volatility and unpredictability of people’s opinions.

Like beauty, reputation is in the eyes of the beholder. So gaining the respect of the governed is critical. This can be achieved by creating positive media relationship with both local and national press, by engagement of social media influencers to help connect the policies and programs of government with the reading and listening public.

In doing this, a government must leverage on its best selling points to create a connection with the people. People support policies that touches their daily lives and wellbeing.This is the only thing that matters to the people and makes them engage the government. So government accomplishments must be openly, frankly and speedily communicated to the people to minimize damage.

Government communication is not only about the release of information to the press. Rather it is all about strategically crafting and presenting an image of government to help build a stronger reputation. Reputation is an asset that can be used as a defence to preserve the relationship with the governed.

Finally, a government must be able to holistically monitor its reputation by creating forums for interaction with the public, by going on fact finding missions into the local areas to understand what is happening, and by conducting independent opinion polls about peoples perception of the actvities of government.

Government should never under estimate the dangers and cost of a poor reputation. A reputation serves as a signal of the underlying qualities of a government. Investors value a government that enjoys good reputation. They place their trust in well regarded institutions.

Prince Eze Ugochukwu writes from Owerri. Imo State.

When Crisis Knocks On The Door~Prince Eze Ugochukwu.

Nobody and no organization should under-estimate the cost of a poor reputation and poor integrity.

In whatever enterprise, engagement, circumstances, or situation, when a search of your name comes out bad, when your name trends mostly negative, then something need to be done.

Public perception serves as a signal to the underlying quality of any organization. If the perception is zero, if the perception is negative, then there is a serious problem.

It should be realized that a single issue can affect the image of an organization. Any development in the public arena, which if it continues, could have a SIGNIFICANT impact on the image of an organization must be quickly and sincerely dealt with. Such is worth paying attention to.

It is important to manage an issue well before it becomes a crisis. It is important to identify potential, emerging or actual trends, concerns and issues likely to affect an organization.

To manage an issue, an organization must have strategic communication management tools. An organization cannot sit back and wait to act. And just because you put out a message and press release does not mean people are believing your brand either.

Organizations must be able to identify, analyze, create an action, a strategy, and evaluate issues that may have significant impact on its integrity. These issues must be assigned priority of response.

Organizations must conduct risk analysis and rate those risks accordingly. Whether they are low, medium or high risk ratings. Identifying and prioritizing risks is a useful management tool, as it helps you to know where to focus your attention and the type of mitigation plans you should put in place.

People today use twitter, facebook, you-tube, instagram or similar platforms to post negative comments and images about organizations. People make defamatory remarks about  organizations on air, radio, television, podcast;  in traditional print media, or blogs.

Even employees and top echelons can defame their own organizations with careless comments that are either spoken or posted.

Any of these situations can cause potential loss of credibility. So sticking your head in the sand is not best practice.

Organizations need to make the right choices to ensure that  people perceive them positively and authentically. First of all by delivering on their promises, and commitments, then by listening  and responding to the people.

An organization must know what the people are saying about it, what topics and issues are trending, what are the preferences of the people and what  competitors are up to. Many issues escalate due to non response and because an organization is not actively listening.

As they say, the customer is always right. So the people are always right. Offer them apology and a solution. Address their fundamental problems, assist and care for those directly affected by the organizations action or inaction, manage the media and other channels of communication. Centralize information flow and be clear on who is releasing information.

Finally organizations should be able to isolate the team handling its crisis. Crisis management and communication should be undertaken by an adhoc team or committee so that the crisis team can focus on the crisis at hand, while the organization’s core activities goes on and not bugged down.

Prince Eze Ugochukwu writes from Abuja. Nigeria.

Fake News And Mis-information: The Need To Inculcate Responsibility~Prince Eze Ugochukwu.

• 

Gradually it has become very difficult to check the facts behind so many stories. The speed of information dissemination have made sources of news very difficult to ascertain.

Both the government and the people themselves must be concerned. Everybody can be a victim. Fake News come in different forms, articles, images, videos etc, all based on fabricated narratives. They are completely false information created and spread to confuse and misinform the public.

We must accept the fact, that fake news have caused serious damage to many individuals, institutions and their reputations. The victims are left destroyed and messed up forever, with shattered and tattered sense of self-worth.

Increasingly the hard earned reputation of individuals, including institutional reputations of government and her agencies have come under attack. Confusion is daily sowed. Facts has been obscured. Honest assessment of government policies and programs are being impeded making it difficult for the governed to distinguish between facts and fiction.

Strategic partners, stakeholders, development agencies and potential investors are systematically chased away by purveyors of fake news. Jobs are lost, funding and financing opportunities disappear before our very eyes.

Like the covid19 pandemic raging like wildfire and taking lives, fake news is equally an epidemic. The epidemic of misinformation is also destroying lives and institutions of governance.

An Agent Provocateur, a deliberate   inciting agent, will sit down and create news that changes the views of a significant chunk of the population towards hate, violence and explosion of revolt against government and its agencies and appointees, knowing fully well that government cannot work and will  fall into mockery by losing the trust of the governed.

Democracy requires trust between the government and the governed. As citizens and stakeholders, we cannot allow manipulators to win. False informations meant to deceive and mislead audiences should not be encouraged.

In todays digital world, the speed that information is disseminated and shared makes fake news and misinformation one of the key impediments in managing the reputation and integrity of government. Fake news and false rumours reach more people, and  penetrate deeper into the populace than accurate stories. Social media amplifies false information and elicit strong emotions against government.

It is in the interest of government to battle to protect its reputation and integrity.

Government and her officials must realise that it takes only one person to ignite crisis. So government must pay attention and remain vigilant before things get out of hand. The management of the reputation of government is so crucial because it is the most important asset of government for the defence and preservation and marketing of its programs and policies.

Prince Eze Ugochukwu wrote from Owerri. Imo State.

Human Communication As A Panacea To Leadership Problems
~Prince Eze Ugochukwu.

• 

When we communicate as humans, we express our emotional state. We communicate our thoughts and emotions. We do so, through our body language and through our verbal language.

In todays world, burdened by numerous and divergent problems ranging from health, security, economic downturn etc, communication assumes a greater significance, as it helps people to reach mutually beneficial agreements.

Between a leader and those he govern, communication is a bridge to harmony.

Through human communication, a leader can find “points in common” with the lead. It allows parties to express what each wishes to say, it allows parties to listen to each other and thus helps to establish shared solutions.

A leader who wishes to make a positive impact, must develop skills of inter-personal communication. Skills are very important for every activity, and goes with attitude, which is a way or manner of applying a skill.

In order to succeed, a leader needs the instruments of assertiveness, empathy and feedback to achieve his set goals and objectives in governance.

An assertive leader is one who can deliver his message clearly, firmly, directly and respectfully.

A leader must always ask himself the following questions; What does the people need from me, what emotion are they feeling,  how do I feel about the situation of the people, and what communication channel is most appropriate to reach the people.

Through assertive communication, a leader can promote collaboration and teamwork, by allowing points of views to be expressed and make decisions collectively.

Often, a leader pays attention to technical issues of governance only. In other words, he tend to ignore the emotional state or mood of the governed and this can damage inter-personal relationship.

This is where empathy comes in. With empathetic listening, a leader can understand messages from his people, not only by paying close attention, but also with emotional understanding.

Many a time, those in authority inadvertently allow techinical issues of policies and programs to overwhelm them and make them to forget that people have different ways of thinking and acting.

Leaders are faced with daily conflicts of governance. There are natural tensions in human interactions. The solution lies in dialogue. Dialogue helps to remove obstacles by achieving understanding and making it possible for stakeholders to work together.

For any leader, dialogue comprises of the ability to communicate and the ability to listen. By talking, people come to understand each other, and by listening empathy is achieved.

A leader can through errors of his own, hinder empathy, thereby allienating himself from the people. This will occur when a leader ignores or does not pay attention to what the people are saying, or when he pretends to listen, but having his attention elsewhere, or when he listens to the aspects that interest him, ignoring others that are not relevant to him, or when a leader identifies only the technical aspects of work tasks, ignoring the emotional states or moods of the governed, and constantly imposing his authority as a leader.

These communication errors cause rejection, and distancing of others, thus weakening and breaking our interpersonal relationships.

On the other hand, feedbacks helps a leader to adjust better and makes him capable and able to direct, guide, teach and motivate the governed after receiving and analyzing messages from them.

For a good leader therefore, the pathway to success lies in the clarity of his message to his people, the respect that goes with it, how he pays attention to the emotions of his people, and how he digests information from the governed. If these are properly harnessed and applied, landmark achievements will be recorded by a leader.

Prince Eze Ugochukwu, writes from Nkwerre, Imo State.

Protecting The Reputation Of A Government And It’s Institutions~Prince Eze Ugochukwu.

• 

The Reputation of any government has to do with it’s credibility, trustworthiness, responsibility and reliability.

For any government to succeed, it must build, maintain and protect a reputation. Government is a brand, and every brand has a reputation which can be tarnished.

A government that is desirous of  managing it’s reputation must have the ability to listen to what the people are saying, and find out what the opposition is up to. It must endeavour to respond to issues before they escalate into crisis, it must deliver on promises and be authentic, consistent, timely and show character at all times.

Reputation comes from the actions of government. It is what makes the people and stakeholders decide whether to trust government and its appointees. Here the behavior, communication and relationship between the government and the governed becomes crucial. This is because reputation is trust on the ability of government to deliver on its promises.

Appointees form a critical part of the reputation of any government. Firstly, how do the appointees behave. How do they interact with the stakeholders and the population at large, and secondly what kind of ambassadors are they in the building and maintaining of government’s reputation. Appointees must be conscious of their tone, style as well as attitude in their interface with the people.

In todays digital age, managing the reputation of government has become very troublesome, what; with everyone a publisher; with social media defining how governments are perceived; with the global reach and spread of negative stories. These have  made the audience much more powerful.

Governments need to be proactive in managing its reputation. It must identify potential problems and risks before they arise, it must also mitigate and respond appropriately when problems arise. Government must be empathetic and understanding to the demands of the people and build a community of fans and supporters bearing in mind the volatility and unpredictability of people’s opinions.

Like beauty, reputation is in the eyes of the beholder. So gaining the respect of the governed is critical. This can be achieved by creating positive media relationship with both local and national press, by engagement of social media influencers to help connect the policies and programs of government with the reading and listening public.

In doing this, a government must leverage on its best selling points to create a connection with the people. People support policies that touches their daily lives and wellbeing.This is the only thing that matters to the people and makes them engage the government. So government accomplishments must be openly, frankly and speedily communicated to the people to minimize damage.

Government communication is not only about the release of information to the press. Rather it is all about strategically crafting and presenting an image of government to help build a stronger reputation. Reputation is an asset that can be used as a defence to preserve the relationship with the governed.

Finally, a government must be able to holistically monitor its reputation by creating forums for interaction with the public, by going on fact finding missions into the local areas to understand what is happening, and by conducting independent opinion polls about peoples perception of the actvities of government.

Government should never under estimate the dangers and cost of a poor reputation. A reputation serves as a signal of the underlying qualities of a government. Investors value a government that enjoys good reputation. They place their trust in well regarded institutions.

Prince Eze Ugochukwu writes from Owerri. Imo State.