In 2018 concluded Hockey Champions Trophy at Netherlands, India’s performance was being hailed by everyone. They were unambiguous in their observation that India’s success was primarily because of good communication between the coach and team. With Harendra Singh at the helm, language was a non issue as the Indian side spoke the same tongue.

This is a very important lesson for corporate; in large, complex organisations, what the leaders intend to communicate does not reach employees in all sections. 

Leaders often employ a variety of methods to communicate with every stakeholder in their company either by organising town halls, emails or even keeping an open door policy. Yet the understanding gap between both sides seldom narrows. Obviously language is not a challenge here. The real challenge is large number of employees, teams and their self-goals.

For leaders, the challenge remains – how to effectively communicate even with last employee and align the organisation’s culture with his vision & strategy. Leaders often do the mistake of trying to control the communication in the organisation; such micromanagement often backfires and ends up getting them branded as the company’s super villain.

Some leaders ignore communication entirely. This gives rise to various fiefdoms within the organisation – each with its own independent leader. This in turn creates chaos and derails the company’s vision & strategies. 

In both these scenarios, productivity of employees as well as the organisation is adversely affected. 

So what do smart leaders do? The answer is simple – they create role models. These role models are sync with his leader’s thoughts, vision & strategy thus ensuring that his message is communicated, understood and well executed by every single employee.

Identifying these role models however is a difficult task. Every organisation has two types of employees form the pillars of its culture & values – the influencer and the performer. Leaders must build healthy communication lines with both these segments and filter them to be moulded in accordance to his values, vision & strategies.

Leaders should establish these role models by recognizing them on platforms such as town halls and appraisals. Empowered performers & influencers are naturally motivated to give over a 100% to achieve the leader’s objective. Once they are established as role models, leaders should then start communicating through them. This helps save time, delivers result oriented communication and even reduces the burden on leaders by ensuring they don’t have to resort to micromanagement.

Remember, Akbar did not rule India on his own, he did it through his Navratna’s. Modern leaders too need to pick their Navratna’s to help him with the goals he has set for himself and the organisation.