How Communication Theories Help Leaders to Communicate More Effectively

The Abstract

Communication is an important aspect in our lives and an even more important aspect in the lives of people who play the roles of leaders. We often see articles or books expounding on leadership traits or skills that a leader should possess. Among these traits and qualities, communication is almost always one of the most commonly listed ones. This comes as no surprise since we now know that researchers and professors in the leadership field have come to recognize being able to communicate as a crucial skill that leaders have to grasp before they can become an effective leader. However, becoming a good communicator requires one to know the basis behind what effective communication means. Hence, the writer puts up the proposition that the knowledge and understanding of communication theories will help leaders to communicate more effectively.

The field of communications is very broad and thus communication theories also spread over a wide variety of situations and contexts. It becomes imperative for us to look at only the theories that will be relevant to our topics and specifically, theories that will help leaders in communicating better. The writer also recognizes the fact that there are many different kinds of leaders who have varying leadership styles and job scopes. This paper will thus focus on a few possible kinds of managers we can find in our society today and how the theories chosen will be able to help specifically these few managers. The few types of managers that we will be exploring in this paper would include "The CEO – Chief Executive Officer", "The MLM – Middle-level Manager", "The Self-Employed Leader" and "The Marketing Manager". We will thus be looking at five communication theories in detail, namely The Rhetoric, General Semantics, Critical Approach of Communication Approach to Organizations, Groupthink and Genderlect Styles. Through these theories, the writer will touch on the properties of each theory and the basis of their applications in real life.

After looking at the five theories mentioned above in detail, a few other theories will be explained briefly which might be relevant to leaders as well. This will be followed by a section regarding effective communication and the basis of what makes up effective communication.

The mere knowledge communication theories will not be able to help leaders to communicate more effectively. They must be able to understand these theories and apply them in context. This means knowing exactly what kinds of theories will be relevant to what kind of situations they are in. Moreover, different leaders will find that certain theories will be more relevant to them than others. The writer wants to emphasize this point because only when leaders can apply the theories correctly will they be able to truly communicate more effectively. Hence, the last part of this paper looks specifically at four case studies and the use of the theories explained in the earlier part of this paper when applied specifically to these case studies.

The paper ends with a conclusion of the ideas presented in this paper and the possible future implications for leaders regarding the use of communication theories.

Contents Page

Chapter 1: Introduction Pg. 4
Chapter 2: Overall Summary: i) Research Problem Pg. 9 ii) Literature Review Pg. 15 iii) History of Communication Theories Pg. 20

Chapter 3: Communication Theories i) Theory I: Aristotle 's Rhetoric Pg. 24 ii) Theory II: Alfred Korzybski 's General Semantics Pg. 34 iii) Theory III: Stanley Deetz 's Critical Theory of Communication Approach to Organizations Pg. 41 iv) Theory IV: Irving Janis 's Groupthink Pg. 47 v) Theory V: Deborah Tannen 's Genderlect Styles Pg. 54 vi) Other Theories: Social Penetration Theory Pg. 60 Functional Perspective to Group Decision Making Pg. 63 Face Negotiation Theory Pg. 65

Chapter 4: Effective Communication

Chapter 5: Applications: i) Case Study I: Susan B. Anthony on Women 's Rights to Vote Pg. 74 ii) Case Study II: The Challenger Disaster Pg. 80 iii) Imaginary Scenario I Pg. 85 iv) Imaginary Scenario II Pg. 87

Chapter 6: Conclusion Pg. 89

Bibliography Pg. 93

CHAPTER 1
Introduction

Communication is the "exchange of information, ideas, or feelings." As such, it is a process that happens during every minute and second of our life, even though we might not notice it. It has become so much a part of our lives that we tend to take it for granted. So often, we hear people relating stories of how things went wrong because of "miscommunication". It is precisely because we tend to make assumptions about how people will interprete the things we say or the way we act that cases of "miscommunication" would arise.
We also tend to overlook the fact that communication is not only about conveying your ideas to others. The other part of the process involves the listener as well. It is an exchange process in which the other party plays an important role as well. It takes both hands to clap in order for the process to be successfully completed. Internationally well-known strategist, Al Ries and author of bestselling books like "The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding" once said, ‘Today, communication itself is the problem. We have become the world 's first overcommunicated society. Each year we send more and receive less. ' There cannot be a more apt description of what is happening in our society today. More and more of us are becoming so concerned with getting our point across that we have not been able to fully grasp the skills of being a good listener or how important exactly listening is as part of the process of communication. However, the party relating the message also bears the responsibility of making sure that the listener has understood his or her message. All in all, communication is always a continuous cycle of giving and receiving and in order to be an effective communicator, we must definitely remember this at all times during communicating. Refer to Fig. 1.
FIG 1

Sending/ Checking for Understanding

/ Receiving/ Asking for Confirmation

Another aspect of communication that is often neglected is actually our body language. We send all kinds of signals to others through the way we carry ourselves and the way we speak. We might not know it but others could have already misunderstood us before we even start speaking because we might act like we are insincere or disrespectful of others even though we might not mean it. This particular aspect of communication is extremely important to leaders as they often have to deliver important messages to their followers – positive or negative. Whichever way it is, the way they present themselves when they are delivering messages plays a crucial part in determining how followers take the message. This is especially true when there is a need to inform followers of a negative or bad news message. A wrong step taken could result in disastrous results. For example, a mid-level manager has been told that a retrenchment exercise is taking place in the company. Unfortunately, one of his staff has been included in the retrenchment list. He now has to take up the responsibility of informing his staff about the retrenchment and explaining the situation to him or her. Imagine if this particular manager was too afraid to deliver the bad news message. He ended up not looking his staff in the eye and fiddling with the retrenchment letter from the company all the time when he was delivering the message. It is almost certain that the employee would be infuriated when he hears the message as the manager has done nothing that would help to alleviate the situation at all. However, the story could have been otherwise. A manager who takes great care in his body language when delivering the message would make sure that there is always direct eye contact with the employee. It would be important for him to appear sincere and listen carefully to anything the employee had to say. Looking scared and worried about delivering the message would only worsen the situation and increase the employee 's unhappiness over the message. "Defining the proper direction is one primary responsibility of the leader of this century. The other is to communicate in a way that transforms change to progress in the minds of those who listen; to inspire them to act." In our present society, leading is not just a simple task of dictating and supervising anymore. Globalisation, economic reforms, political conflicts and most recently, terrorism; all these are going to pose as obstacles or distractions from the ultimate goal or aim. Leadership will be a complicated process of analysing, defining and working towards the final goal among all the distractions that might occur. "It 's the leader 's job to point people in the right direction – with clear, coherent, and consistent communication designed and planned thoughtfully and in advance." The leader of today thus has to lead with a clear direction in mind, and at the same time, ensure that the rest of the team understands which direction they are going. It is only when the whole entire team, together with the leader are working towards a common goal and final destination that success can really be achieved. Communication is thus essential because leaders must be able to communicate the goals and directions to the team other than being able to define it. Finally, they must communicate in such a way that the team will be inspired and motivated to take action. As we can see, communication plays such an important part in leadership that there is thus a need to address the issues involved in leadership communication. This is especially due to the extra problems that have come up in the recent century due to globalisation and the advancement of the society as a whole. A recent case in the UK shows just how much the way a leader delivers his speech can affect the outcome of a situation. On the 22nd May, 2005 almost half of the staff at BBC in London, UK went on a strike. This was in response to a proposed cut of about 3,780 jobs and plans to privatise parts of the corporation. Gerry Morrissey, assistant general secretary of broadcasting and technicians union, Bectu said, "Staff is keen to take part in action to leave director general Mark Thompson in no doubt that he is out of touch." It is evident that the strikers are angry with director general Mark Thompson and it is of no surprise if we just look at some of the things he said. After the strike took place, he continued to hold on to his own opinions, without stopping to think that all these actually could have been prevented if he had handled the situation in a better way. Thomson remarked that the service BBC was able to offer during the strike was "rather better than we thought". By saying this, he was indirectly trying to imply that the strike did not cause that much disruption to operations and that even though the workers went on strike, the company could still function. In other words, he showed disregards for the importance of the workers and decided that he was not going to give way. Some might say that this has to be done in order for the workers to come back to work. However, what he is doing would only aggravate the anger of the workers further as he shows no understanding whatsoever for the plight that they are in. In communication theories, we can actually use the Cognitive Dissonance Theory to explain this situation. The Cognitive Dissonance Theory states that your ideas will be less acceptable to people if it is not in line with their own thoughts and beliefs.
We can see very clearly through this case how communication can play a great part in the life of a leader and doing it the right way could enable you to achieve the results you want in the most efficient manner.

CHAPTER 2:
i) Research Problem The aim of this paper is to do an in-depth study into communication theories and how these theories can actually help leaders to perform their roles in a more effective way. Equipped with the knowledge regarding communication, leaders can analyse the situation they are in better and hence apply the right methods of communication in order to achieve the maximum results. The writer will try to elaborate on the important links between communication and leadership as it is primarily due to these links that communication theories are able to help leaders in performing their tasks better. The writer would like to put forward the hypothesis that leaders can make use of communication theories to help them predict the different kinds of reactions they will get from the different methods that they engage in communicating. If leaders are able to cull information from the theories and apply it to their role as a leader, they will be able to at least have in mind a rough image of what will happen should they decide to present themselves the way they do. Again, the writer would like to stress the importance here of application. Theories are only as important as the amount of relevance they have to the specific individual. Since there are so many theories available, the writer suggests that leaders study the few theories that they believe would be the most relevant and hence useful to them. Leaders must also be able to apply the theories to the different kinds of circumstances that they may face as learning a theory without knowing how to apply it in context would be of no use at all.
Different situations would actually call for different actions from the leaders and hence, there would also be cases of exceptions. Theories are only theories and unlike any scientific formula, they are not laws of truth. This is even more so when we are talking about communication as we all know that human beings are mammals who have their own unique characteristics and personality. According to a certain communication theory, people are expected to react in a certain way but this may not be always true and leaders must always keep in mind that fact. Over-reliance on these theories could also result in adverse effects and hence, the writer will also touch on the limitations to the use of these communication theories.
The writer will hence suggest that leaders have a basic grasp of a few theories that are more general in nature, and hence are easily applicable to almost all different kinds of situations. Following that, the writer will put forth a recommendation of other theories that are specifically relevant to certain leadership roles. These roles would include "The CEO – Chief Executive Officer", "The MLM – Middle-level Manager", "The Self-Employed Leader" and "The Marketing Manager". "The CEO", like what its name suggests, belongs to the highest level of management in the company. He or she would have to communicate on a daily basis to external clients, the board of directors, the rest of the higher level of management and regularly during functions and conferences. Therefore, the unique point about CEO is actually their constant interaction with outside parties. It is of great importance, then that they are effective communicators who not only are capable at public speaking but are also careful with their body language as they will be under constant scrutiny by the public and also by their own company.
"The MLM" would be the link between the higher levels of management and the lower levels of staff. Studies have shown that employees would much rather hear any information about the company from their supervisors than from the top management. The studies conducted jointly by the International Association of Business Communicators and Towers, Perrin, Forster & Crosby in 1980, 1982, and 1984, and by TPF&C in 1990 all reached the same conclusion: U.S and Canadian employees prefer their immediate supervisors as sources of information. With such compelling evidence available, we can no longer neglect how important middle level managers are in the communication chain of an organization.
The middle-level managers are not only responsible for communicating to the staff the messages passed to them from the higher levels of management, they are also responsible for giving feedback received from the staff to the management. In this way, it makes it of utmost importance that they are good listeners. This is not to say that the other leaders do not have to be so, but the writer would just like to highlight the fact that this aspect of communication becomes even more essential for "The MLM". They are the leaders who are in constant contact with the staff on the lower levels and most of the time; it is also these leaders who are more familiar with the operations and what is happening on the frontlines. They thus have to ensure that they maintain good relationships with the staff at all times as they are the representatives of the higher levels of management whenever they speak to the staff. If the staff and the middle-level managers do not enjoy a good working relationship, it would then pose a big problem whenever there is a need to communicate important messages and persuade or convince the staff. They also need to be able to obtain feedback from the staff and communicate it in the most effective way to management such that the feedback is accepted and some kind of action is taken with regards to the feedback.
"The Self-Employed Manager" would be characterised by self-ownership of the company and most likely, the size of the company would be relatively small. The recent trend is that there are more and more young entrepreneurs starting their own businesses and I specifically chose "The Self-Employed Manager" to show acknowledgement of such a trend. There is a need to address the communication issues associated with these leaders as some of the problems they face might not be the same as the rest of the leaders. Due to these properties, he or she would then have to take on many responsibilities that could have been undertaken by the staff if it had been a bigger company, themselves. This means making a lot of calls to other companies and organizations themselves, setting up meetings with clients and maintaining a very close relationship with the few staff the company might have. This is even more important than the MLM as ultimately, the MLM only works for the company. There is hence a lesser sense of ownership and subsequently, the need to build close and strong relationships with the staff would decrease.
Lastly, the "Marketing Manager" has been included for a very specific reason. The effects of globalisation are becoming more and more obvious in our society today and even more so in the business world. The area of geographical regions that the marketing manager might have to cover now will thus be a great difference from what it had been before. Now, not only does he or she need to be concerned with the demands and needs of the local consumers, if the company is considering expanding into overseas markets or has already done so, it becomes the marketing manager 's responsibility to take care of the marketing in these overseas areas as well. Intercultural communication is becoming more and more of an issue for these particular leaders as they have to differences in culture of the new market from the local one and hence make appropriate adjustments to their marketing strategies to meet to the needs of these markets. It cannot be stressed further the importance of marketing for products and even more so when companies are trying to bring their products into new markets. Consumers will naturally be reluctant to try new products and the level of reluctance increases when your product comes from a region the local market is not familiar with. Hence, there must be a very detailed plan for marketing to ensure that the introduction of the product into the new market is smooth. For example, food and beverage companies that are planning to expand their operations into places like Indonesia or Malaysia, where over 90% of the population is halal, need to take extra care to make sure that their food is free of pork and none of their advertisements or product packaging should involve references in any kind to pigs or pork. Another country that marketing managers might need to take note of would be India. A large percentage of Indians are vegetarians due to their religion and in 2001, McDonald 's Corp., a large multinational company which failed to take care of this issue well enough was sued by several vegetarians of the country. The product in question was actually the all-famous French Fries. Contrary to common belief that the French Fries were thought to be cooked in pure vegetable oil, the truth was that McDonald 's continued to add a small amount of beef tallow to its fries for flavouring. . This created uproar in the country and subsequently in other parts of the world, where vegetarians felt deceived by the company. We can thus see that in our present society today, where consumers are placing higher and higher expectations on companies, the leaders of the marketing divisions must learn to adapt to these expectations and the ever-changing needs of their consumers. It is with this in mind, that I have included the "Marketing Manager", as I wish to touch on some parts of intercultural communication which would be specifically useful for these leaders.
In the real world, the different kinds of leadership roles are numerous and every single leader handles a multiple range of tasks and assignments unique to his or her own job scope. Hence, leadership roles are not just limited to the 4 roles that will be touched on in this paper. Leaders should analyse for themselves the role that would best fit what they are doing and apply the theories involved to their own situations. If they find that none of the roles come near to fit them, then they should look at other theories that might be more able to cater to their own needs.

ii) Literature Review "Strategic communication has never been more important than it is today. Employees expect to know about their company 's plans, and they assume that they 'll participate in their company 's growth. That means that leaders must make communication a personal priority and drive its value throughout the organization." Over the years, there has been an increasing amount of attention paid to the subject of leadership communication that is the ways that leaders need to communicate in due to the kind of situations and tasks that they are faced with on a day-to-day basis. Colleges and universities have also started to notice this trend and have begun to offer courses covering leadership but looking at it from a communication perspective. Communication theories can actually be helpful to guide leaders towards the principles of communicating, although they will still need to know how they should apply these principles specifically to their own roles as leaders.
There are more and more books published everyday about how we can become better leaders or how leaders should perform in order to get more effective results. More often than not, being able to communicate well is listed as one of the attributes of an effective or successful leader. Scenarios and case studies are also usually given to illustrate how leaders can communicate in a varied range of circumstances. All this knowledge is helpful, but I strongly believe that it is more important for leaders to be equipped with the knowledge of communication theories. These are the basic building blocks of communication and it is only when leaders have already gotten hold of such information, will scenarios and case studies become more useful and relevant. For example, a book would normally tell leaders to be careful with the use of words, especially when speaking to followers as using one wrong word could result in dire consequences. But why is this so? This is because according to Alfred Korzybski 's general semantics theory, different people perceive different words differently. Hence, the use of one word may sound fine to one person but another person could be offended by the use of that same word. As you can see, knowing the "whys" comes before knowing "what I should do".
Books that specifically talk about communication theories and leadership are few and one of these books is "Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life: A Practical Introduction" by Elaine Zelley and Marianne Dainton. This book merges the ideas of communication theories together with those of leadership such that people who are looking to apply these theories to their professional life will find the book extremely helpful. The authors themselves are highly respected individuals in their fields – both are doctorate holders and current professors at the La Salle University in Philadelphia. Taking a quote from the book itself, "Those who are genuinely good communicators are those who understand the underlying principles behind communication and are able to enact, appropriately and effectively, particular communication skills as the situation warrants." Like the authors of the book, the writer also believes that leaders who would like to be effective communicators need to know about communication theories and learn to apply them to the way they communicate.
"Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application" by Richard L. West is another useful reference for communication theories and their uses. This book was written mainly for people who had had no contact with communication theories before and hence it makes for an easy read. The examples given also complement the theories well, allowing readers make the connection between the theoretical and practical parts of the theories. There is also a section titled "Ethics and Communication" in Chapter 1 which makes a good read especially for marketing managers. People are getting more and more sensitive about advertisements and marketing campaigns because they feel that they can rarely trust what marketers say. Convincing the consumers and earning their trust is definitely part of the job scope as a marketing manager and the writer would recommend information like this for them.
Another book that the writer considers highly effective as an information source for communication theories is Em Griffin 's "A First Look at Communication Theory". Although this is not a book that is tailored specially to leaders and how communication theories can help them in their leadership positions, the writer strongly feels that leaders who are reading up on communication theories for the first time to refer to this book. As suggested by the writer, leaders should get a firm grasp of the basics of certain important theories before progressing to read more into a few theories that would be specifically helpful to them due to the nature of their leadership roles.
"Theories of Human Communication" by Stephen W. Littlejohn and Karen A. Foss provides another useful reference for information regarding communication theories and their basics. Unfortunately, the book provides little relevant information regarding the application of these theories for leaders. The Applications & Implications segment at the end of each chapter provides general principals for applying theories and even these general principles do not give detailed information about application for specific theories. As each chapter has communication theories grouped according to the kind of people or situation they apply to, the Applications & Implications segment only gives a overall summary for how you can generally apply all the theories in that chapter. In other words, the book is written for readers as communicators in themselves, rather than leaders as communicators. Hence leaders might find that the book is only useful to a certain extent since it does not give specific enough examples that for the application of the theories and how these theories may be applied in situations more relevant to leaders.
Also another reference by Katherine Miller, "Communication Theories Perspectives, Processes and Contexts", this book gives more detailed background information regarding communication theories. However, compared to the previous two books, this book is significantly more challenging as it relies on more technical terms to explain its theories and can be a bit discouraging for readers who have had no contact with communication theories before.
Finally, one of the groundbreaking books regarding leadership communication recently published would be Michael Z. Hackman and Craig E. Johnson 's "Leadership a Communication Perspective". Although not a book that uses communication theories to look at leadership, it does explore some relevant issues on the topics of leadership and communication. Now into its fourth edition, the book looks at the different kinds of leadership styles and their respective ways of communication. It is used as a textbook for over 400 universities in the United States, Europe and Australasia for their courses on leadership communication , another piece of evidence of its credibility, reliability and relevance to the topic. Michael Z. Hackman himself is a Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. Craig E. Johnson is also a Professor of Communication and Chair of the Department of Arts At George Fox University, Newberg, Oregon.
Although more and more leaders are beginning to find out the ways in which communication theories can better help them cope with their jobs, I believe that there are still leaders who do not know that most of the things that they learn from books on leadership are actually applications of communication theories. Hence, what the writer proposes is that knowledge of communication theories might actually be able to help leaders to understand the reasoning behind those books on leadership. This is not a definite stand but just a possibility that the writer wishes to point out.

iii) History of Communication Theories The oldest form of theory regarding communication must have originated from the times of the Greek civilisation, four centuries before the birth of Christ. The Greek civilization, considered one of the greatest civilizations of all times, was famous for its long line of philosophers, politicians and educators. Aristotle was one of these men. A student of Plato, Aristotle placed great importance on delivering the truth to the audience and looked down on those of his fellow country mates who engaged in fanciful tricks of the language or had a "glib tongue" to move the audience. Aristotle then came up with The Rhetoric, a way of systematically analysing a speech in order to ensure that it achieves its aim of persuading the audience. The Rhetoric has been a strong influence on the development of public speaking and even till today, it is almost a must for communicators to know about Aristotle and The Rhetoric, the beginning of a long history regarding communication and public speaking. There are actually 2 different perspectives of communication theories that are used and they are the "scientific perspective" and the "humanistic perspective". The "scientific perspective" as suggested by its name, wishes to have a more tangible feel of the subject. By tangible, I mean that it can be measured. Usually, it looks at the effects of a specific theory in terms of numbers and the numbers would be a way of showing the reliability of the theory. The "humanistic perspective" on the other hand takes a more subjective and artistic view. These 2 perspectives can be illustrated using the example below. Imagine an advertisement for a new kind of chocolate fudge ice-cream that is flavoured with cinnamon and hazelnut, "Choco De Fudge". The advertisement will be aimed at attracting young children as that is also the target consumer group of the product. The advertisement begins in the setting of a kitchen where two children are fighting over a packet of "Choco De Fudge". In the midst of fighting, they break the packet and realise that there are actually two portions of the ice-cream in one packet. Hence, they each take one and start to eat it. After taking the first bite, the setting behind them changes from that of a kitchen to a fairytale land. The children are surrounded by characters like fairies, princesses, goblins and giants all eating "Choco De Fudge" as well. The children, who at first were engrossed in tasting the ice-cream, turn around and are surprised by the people they see. They then share smiles of acknowledgement with the rest of the fairytale characters and continue to enjoy their ice-cream.
From the "scientific perspective", communication researchers would want to find out how effective this kind of advertisement would be. To find out the level of effectiveness, they would want to get statistics of the level of influence it has on the target consumers - children. Are children influenced by the scene of a fairytale land and their favourite characters eating the new product? Are advertisements that are similar to this one i.e. they are presented in a very fantasy-like way more effective in meeting their aims of drawing more people to buy the product? In other words, the "scientific perspective" regarding communication theories is concerned with how the message has been brought across and the effects it has on the audience due to the way the message has been delivered.
On the other hand, looking at it from the "humanistic perspective", the advertisement would be analysed in a slightly different way. We will try to look at a deeper meaning that might be present in the advertisement rather than just to accept it as it is. From the beginning, the advertisement shows two children fighting over the ice-cream. This is to create a sense that the product is highly-wanted and hence it has children fighting over it. Next, the children are brought into a fairytale land after eating the ice-cream. We can see the fairytale land as an imaginary fantasy land that might exist in the minds of all children. In the advertisement, all the characters in the fairytale land are also eating ice-cream. By transporting the children to the fairytale land when they were eating the ice-cream is a way of creating a kind of convergence between the lives of the children and the fairytale characters. The ice-cream would be the only link between these two very diverse groups of people and children would be influenced into buying the ice-cream as they feel that it might somehow bring them closer to that imaginary fantasy land in their minds. As such, the "humanistic perspective" is actually concerned with the contents of the message and the fact that people might interprete it in different ways even though it might be the same message. In other words, it takes a more "human" view of things as human beings are, naturally, unpredictable at times. Due to their varying backgrounds and experience, they would have their own ideas regarding certain things and we would need to acknowledge that fact.
So what is the relevance of all this to leaders and communication? To sum it briefly, leaders need to realise that there are these two ways of looking at communication at all times. For example, when leaders are trying to put across a certain message at a meeting, they need to be concerned with the best method of putting the message across. Should they just merely rely on their own voices to tell their followers about the message? Or could they look at some alternatives like a slideshow or a videotape? Even better, maybe they could look back on previous experiences with speaking to their followers at a meeting and reflect on what exactly were the most effective ways to get their message across. Next, they need to know what kind of words or pictures they should be using. Depending on the occasion and the kind of people present at the meeting, the leader needs to understand that different people might take the same message in different ways. It could be impossible to satisfy everyone 's needs but it is always possible to try to minimize the chances of misunderstanding between the followers and the leaders themselves.
On the whole, communication theories serve as a guide to the expected results of a certain way or type of communication. Depending on the medium through which the message is delivered and the exact contents of the message, different theories can be used to predict the likely reactions that might occur. Although these theories are not laws of truth, they can at least provide us with a certain sense of knowledge of the results in any given case. We all know that weather forecasts are not exactly accurate but at least there is a reference point if we wish to know about the weather for tomorrow. It is the same with communication theories. They offer us an explanation for some of the things we notice regarding communication and from there, we are able to find out more about the whole communication process and choose for ourselves what could be the most suitable way for us.

CHAPTER 3:
i) Theory I: Aristotle 's The Rhetoric As mentioned earlier, Aristotle 's Rhetoric is one of the oldest communication theories and was used by Aristotle to analyse speeches, especially those of public speaking since the political scene was exceptionally active during his time. However, as times have changed, the theory does not necessarily have to be used only on occasions when there is public speaking involved. With mass media coming into place, we can have speeches held over the radio or the television. Also, public speaking does not have to be confined to particular kinds of speeches. Even a short speech at a meeting, a conference or a seminar can be analysed using the Rhetoric. It is exactly the fact that this theory can be so widely-used that I have chosen to include this into this section. Leaders are often required to speak to an audience in order to bring their messages across. It could be to inform their teams of the targets or goals that need to be achieved for that particular period, a thank-you speech to show appreciation to all the members of the team or even a bad news message like a retrenchment exercise that would be carried out in the company soon. The numbers of situations are numerous and thus, learning about the Rhetoric would definitely be a useful tool for leaders to have a guide to base the way in which they should construct their speech and how they wish to deliver it.
Aristotle saw the function of rhetoric as the discovery in each case of "the available means of persuasion". The point that must be emphasized here is that Aristotle did not believe in using unscrupulous ways to accomplish the aim of persuading the audience. The process through which the audience is convinced must not involve force, law, torture and war. The Rhetoric uses a very systematic and detailed way of looking at a speech. It can be further categorised into three different areas of proof: logical (logos), ethical (ethos) and emotional (pathos). To Aristotle, the effective communicator would be someone who has taken care of all of these three areas in his or her speech.
Logical Proof (logos) involves the formation of an argument, with supporting evidence to serve as the framework of your entire speech. As its name suggests, it is through the use of logical reasoning, that the audience is convinced by what you say. By formation of an argument, it actually follows the format of a formal deductive syllogism. This means that it would include one or more premises and a conclusion at the end. For example, if I were to argue that "Stealing is wrong", this would be the conclusion for my argument. Since I would like to arrive at this conclusion, I must have certain premises presented in front. Hence, the whole deductive syllogism can be presented in the following way:
General premise: It is wrong to take things that do not belong to you.
Specific Premise: Stealing involves something from others that does not belong to you.
Conclusion: Stealing is wrong.
As seen, there is actually a general premise and a specific one. These are the two forms of logical proof that Aristotle focussed on: the example and the enthymeme. The enthymeme is considered as the "strongest of the proofs" and is usually intentionally withheld from the audience. This is due to the fact that this premise would often be the "universally accepted" premise and the audience knows how to fill in this premise even if it is not explicitly said out. In the example given above, if we were to withhold the enthymeme from the audience, the argument would go something like this, "It is wrong to take things that do not belong to you…Stealing is wrong." In other words, the enthymeme of this particular argument is that "Stealing involves taking something from others that does not belong to you." The definition of stealing in this case is generally accepted by everyone. Hence, by not mentioning the enthymeme to the audience, and instead have the audience fill in this part of the argument themselves, they will end up becoming more convinced. As the audience plays a part in coming up with the complete argument, the speech becomes not just a one-sided affair on the part of the speaker. The enthymeme allows the audience to indirectly participate in the speech and hence eventually producing "the strongest of the proofs". A piece of supporting evidence is only as strong as the level of truth the audience places on it. Since the enthymeme is a piece of proof that the audience themselves provide, little needs to be said about how strong this piece of evidence would be.
Next, the Emotional Proof (pathos) of the speaker is actually the use of any words, sounds or actions to bring out certain emotions in the audience. Depending on the purpose of the speech, the speaker would have to know what kinds of words or methods of delivery for his speech should be used. Two very important tools that can be used here are actually metaphors and analogies. Metaphors are language tools that can help to create a greater impact on the audience because they could bring out the essence of a situation if used correctly. A strong metaphor can determine the mindset for thinking about an entire system or situation and hence careful choosing of the right one could be crucial for the purpose of the speech.
"Employees are just like the parts and components of an airplane. Everything right down to the smallest screw is important and the lack of one could be the result of a plane crash."
By using the metaphor above, a manager is able to achieve the effect of informing the employees about their importance to the company in a mere few sentences. Metaphors are useful because they can simplify what the speaker wishes to say and the audience can then relate to it better. Analogies are used when there is a need to create a more lasting impression by doing a comparison with a more significant event, person or object. Again, the analogy must be carefully chosen. Analogies can create a lasting effect whether or not it was a good or a bad one. Hence, use them only if you are confident that they will be effective in bringing across your message to the audience.
Other examples of how the speaker can relate to the audience, like when leaders would like to create a closer relationship with the audience, they could describe the common goals, views or feelings that they share with their audience. In this way, the gap between the audience and their leaders is decreased and any possible feelings of inferiority that they had initially could actually be minimized. Also, if the leader is trying to motivate the audience about a certain task at hand, he could motivate the audience by telling them the possible rewards that they might get if the target was achieved. This could be in the form of monetary rewards, promotions, or maybe just an expensive dinner treat after the whole project is completed. On the other end of the spectrum, if the speaker has to deliver a bad news message, he or she could use the help of some body language to get the audience to understand the severity of the situation. Keeping quiet for a very long time before the start of the speech or putting on a very serious face during the delivery of the speech would be some possible examples. Karen Hughes, who was at George Bush 's side helping the President with his speeches when he was elected governor of Texas and then President once said this, "The steps to leadership communication – political or financial – all have a common thread: dealing with integrity, forthrightness and clarity." This is what the final part of the Rhetoric, the Ethical Proof (ethos) of the speaker is about. It is the degree of credibility the audience thinks the speaker has. We must know that audience can form impressions of the speaker way before the speaker actually starts speaking. Hence, it is important that these impressions that the audience have of the speaker are advantageous to him or her. If the audience does not view the speaker as a credible source of information even before the speaker speaks, it is almost impossible for the speaker to be able to persuade the audience at all.
Ethos can be seen from three different angles. They are the perceived intelligence of the speaker, a virtuous character that the speaker may or may not have and the presence of any goodwill. Audiences judge intelligence by the overlap between their beliefs and the speaker 's ideas. Hence, the point here is to be able to identify with the audience. Even if the speaker is a highly-intelligent individual but he or she fails to acknowledge the values of the audience, worst still, the speaker chooses to denounce those values totally; the audience would most definitely be a very unsupportive one and trying to persuade the audience would be an impossible task. However, it is also important that the speaker is a credible authority to be talking on the specific topic at hand. For example, we cannot have the chief financial controller of a company giving a presentation regarding the proposed marketing strategies for the year. Marketing is something not within the job scope of the chief financial controller and the audience is hardly going to agree with anything that he has to say. This could be an exaggerated example but cases like these do occur and leaders should avoid committing such a mistake during any speeches that they have to do.
As mentioned, the audience would form certain impressions of the speaker even before the speaker starts to talk and hence, having a virtuous character would certainly aid the speaker in terms of his or her level of credibility. The audience is more likely to support someone whom they feel is a kind and honest person than someone who is known for stabbing people behind their backs or taking credit for something which they did not do. It could seem unbelievable that we judge the effectiveness of a communicator according to how kind or how honest that person is. However, the truth is that if two speeches with the same contents were delivered by two different people, with all other factors constant, the audience would almost definitely show more support for the speaker whom they feel displays a more worthy character than the other speaker who does not.
The last aspect of ethos would be goodwill. This is actually a measure of the kind of intentions the speaker has towards the audience. If the speaker ultimately has his own ulterior motives, i.e. there is an absolute absence of goodwill; the audience would almost certainly be unconvinced by whatever the speaker has to say. In conclusion, leaders must understand that the audience can be a very subjective group of people, especially when it comes to cases where there is a need to put a message across to the audience on the part of the speaker. No matter how difficult or unfair it may seem, the speaker just has to learn about how to handle such cases and to look at the situation from the point of the audience.
Throughout the years, there have also been critics of the rhetoric and the way the theory promises to work if you succeed in analysing all the three parts of the theory well in your speech. Critics feel that Aristotle has drawn too passive a view of the audience, such that the speaker is able to anticipate all the possible reactions of the audience before his speech. However, given the fundamental properties that a communication theory possesses, we should know that there will always be uncertainties involved. The fact that it is human beings we are talking about here makes it all the more so. Nonetheless, Aristotle 's view of how we can analyse a speech is still reliable and provides a good guide to how you may want to frame your speech. In order to counter the problem of uncertainties involved, leaders should make sure that they are always aware of the reactions of their audience during the speech. Should they find out that there is any discrepancy between the expected reactions from the audience and the actual reactions, they should start doing a mental review of what could have gone wrong and if possible, make changes if necessary to the rest of the speech. Usually, situations like this would occur when the speaker does not have a good enough understanding of the audience and hence a less than accurate prediction of the audience 's reactions was made. Hence, it would do well for the speaker to make sure that they know the audience, especially the specific emotional state that the audience could be in due to the situation or circumstances.
Aristotle also failed to give an exact meaning of the enthymeme, making it such that what we know about the enthymeme today is mostly information inferred by scholars who studied Aristotle 's work. There have also been some conflicting views regarding the part of pathos. Aristotle himself emphasized that it was wrong to manipulate the emotions of the speaker. However, it was also Aristotle himself who taught about how to evoke certain emotions in the speaker in order to achieve the aims of the speech. Thus, the writer suggests that the best way to resolve such a conflict would be to make sure that ultimately, you do not end up deceiving the audience in any way. If evoking certain emotions in your audience is necessary for them to receive your information in their best emotional state, then it would be a step you have to take.
In conclusion, Aristotle 's Rhetoric is such a fundamental and essential part of communication theories that almost all the 4 kinds of leaders, "The CEO", "The Middle-Level Manager", "The Self-Employed" and "The Marketing Leader" should take a more in-depth study of this particular theory. This is due to the fact that public speaking forms quite a big percentage of the time these leaders communicate to their team and knowing about the Rhetoric would definitely be helpful to them when they are drawing out their speeches. This is especially true for "The CEO" who has the responsibility of speaking to the Board of Directors, at conferences and very often at general meetings as well. "The CEO" is like the public ambassador of the company and hence he will be required to speak to an audience the most often as compared to the other 4 leaders. "The Middle-Level Manager" is a crucial link between the higher levels of management and the staff. Hence, the burden of communicating to the staff the goals and policies of the company would naturally fall on these managers. Again, should there be any emergency messages or bad news messages like a retrenchment exercise, these managers would be the ones delivering the message to the staff. "The Self-Employed Manager" who is the director of his own company would have to speak to his own employees although more often than not, this would not be in a very formal setting. Lastly, "The Marketing Manager" would have to be concerned with speaking during presentations and also to the marketing team.
On closer analysis, applying the rhetoric would be a slightly more difficult task for the CEO as compared to the other leadership roles. Unlike the rest, the CEO has to speak to a different audience almost every time. Whenever there are external events that require the CEO to be present, he or she would have to apply the public speaking skills to a different audience from the one at the previous event. As such, the CEO must learn how to make observations about the audience fast and find out as much as he can about the nature of the audience before he speaks. On the other hand, the other leaders usually speak to the same audience whenever there is a need to speak at all. The middle-level managers would be speaking to the group of employees directly under them, same for the marketing managers and the self-employed managers only have a few staff that they speak to and interact with everyday. This thus makes it possible for them to have a more thorough understanding of their audience and understanding the audience well means a higher chance of applying the theory well.
What have been covered here are only the most critical points about the theory and hence, it only provides an introduction into the rhetoric and the general idea of the theory. In order to familiarise themselves with the theory, they should continue reading up into this topic and start practising the actual use of the theory whenever they speak. This will be helpful as practising enables them to see patterns in the way the audience reacts to certain words or methods of delivery. The audience, being human beings, are always unpredictable individuals but with use of the theory every time they speak, leaders can start to predict, with a higher chance of being right, the possible reactions of the audience. Understanding the audience is the key to applying the theory of rhetoric well.

ii) Theory II: General Semantics Semantics is the study of relationships between signs and symbols and what they represent. It is a topic of interest for a diverse field of scholars, ranging from philosophers, linguists, psychologists and even to mathematicians. Depending on the angle at which these people have chosen to view this particular subject, a different set of assumptions and findings have been made. This is also the case for language itself. Depending on the person using the language and the people whom the person has directed his speech to or even to people who just happen to overhear it, a totally different set of results can be obtained about the meanings of what the person had said. General semantics was developed by Alfred Korzybski, a Polish engineer who settled in the United States following World War I. The difference between general semantics and semantics is that general semantics is a much broader approach, encompassing many other components compared to semantics. Unlike traditional semantics, where we actually study in detail just the relationship between meanings and words, general semantics touches on these and much more. In general semantics, we take into consideration factors like our environment and the time, factors that can affect how we interpret words and how such interpretation can actually influence how we subsequently behave. Korzybski was influenced by the Whorf-Sapier hypothesis that maintained that the language of a culture determines how speakers of that language think and experience the world. This means that due to a certain way an object is depicted in a particular language, this could result in that object being viewed in a different way even though it is the same object. This is an important point as leaders need to be aware of the fact that the same word they use might be interpreted in different ways by different people. This could be due to many reasons, such as cultural or gender differences. For example, if a company happens to be doing some business with a Japanese client, leaders need to understand the nature of the Japanese system of doing things and handle it differently from the normal way they would have handled an American client or a European client. If leaders do attempt to converse in simple Japanese with the client, they must ensure that they do not do a direct translation from the English language into Japanese as there are many different words that can be used to refer to the same person depending on the seniority of the person and the situation. Like the English "you", the Japanese language has five or more ways of saying the same thing but only one way is the correct one for the situation you are in. If the leader says "anata" to the Japanese client which happens to be one of the words which means "you", the client would be very offended as this version of "you" is only used with close friends or people who are of a lesser rank than you. Although it is possible that you might be forgiven on account that you do not know the language well enough, it would be better to avoid making such a mistake at all if possible.
Korzybski seeked to find an explanation for the destruction in the world that Man had created for himself during World War I. He could not understand why we could progress so far in terms of technological research (in weapons) yet not be able to prevent the war and all its atrocities. The war represented a failure in Man to learn from his experiences in the social context although this ability was put to great use in creating more powerful and destructive weapons. Hence, he came up with the idea of general semantics, in which we learn to apply the scientific method of creating hypotheses, testing for their validity and revising them according to our test results to our everyday lives. According to Korzybski, by learning how to apply the scientific method as illustrated above to our daily lives, we are making use of the time-binding capacity that we, as humans possess. The factor that differentiates us humans from other animals is this particular ability that we have - of passing on information from one generation to another through the use of language. Using general semantics, we are able to evaluate information from the past, learn from it and apply it. For instance, linguistic anthropologist Benjamin Lee Whorf found that "…around a storage of what are called ‘gasoline drums, ' behaviour will tend to a certain type, that is, great care will be exercised; while around a storage of what are called ‘empty gasoline drums, ' it will tend to be different – careless, with little repression of smoking or of tossing cigarettes about. Yet the ‘empty ' drums are perhaps the more dangerous, since they contain explosive vapour." Hence, by learning from this experience, we know that people should be educated about the level of danger that empty gasoline drums have and a more proper labelling of such drums should be created – a label that will induce in people a need to act more cautiously around these empty gasoline drums. Korzybski also proposed the idea of language as a form of mapping. In making maps, we produce pictures that are similar to what there is in reality in order to help us make decisions regarding travelling time, fuel consumption and so on. Korzybski likens this to language as we too, use words to produce images that we think are similar to the real objects. For instance, when I see a car on the road, I can use "a red car" to describe what I see and this in turn is to create a picture similar to what I have seen. However, notice the constant use of ‘similar '. Korzybski pointed out the fact that words, like maps will never be able to truly represent the exact thing that was seen. Referring to the above example about the car, I had left out a lot of other information e.g. what kind of a car was it, what was the car plate, how many people can the car take etc. Hence, when I said "a red car", different people would have conjured up different images of the car in their minds, according to how they perceived the red car to be. By recognizing this fact, we should keep it in mind whenever people speak, that what they say may not be what the case is truly. Words can only be used to map out an image similar to the real object or thing although it will never be 100% accurate. Also, words are chosen by the individual speaker himself to describe the thing or object. The lack of knowledge of certain vocabulary could result in a particular speaker not being able to express himself as well as another speaker. This is crucial for leaders when they are passing on information to their team and vice-versa. Many a time, miscommunication arises as either one or both parties assume too much about the contents of the conversation. Leaders can prevent this from happening by giving clear instructions and always checking with the team if what was said has been received correctly on the part of the team. The most important thing is that they have to keep in mind the idea of mapping and the natural tendency for people to come up with their own interpretations of a message. Since they know that the interpretations of a message may not be the correct one they are trying to put across, then it would be possible for them to rectify any wrong interpretations and make sure the right one is eventually absorbed by the team. Next, Korzybski also introduced the idea of abstraction. Humans, through the use of our senses, are able to abstract information about our environment. However, not everyone abstracts from the environment the same kind of information. This could be due to that person 's culture, upbringing, friends, family or even the place and time he was at. For example, on a crowded street in China, a man and a child are seen to be talking. Depending on the kind of people who witness this scene, a different kind of interpretation could be obtained by different people. One interpretation could be this is a father talking to his child; another interpretation could be the man is trying to con the child into going somewhere with him. Another person could have seen this man walking out from a school nearby and believe that the man is a teacher and the child his student. As we can see, there can be a million and one different things that can be said and all these depend significantly on the individual. This also illustrates another point for leaders. Often, conflicts may arise because people tend to jump to conclusions too fast. It may not be confined to the leaders but also for the team. Hence, not only do leaders need to be aware of this bad habit, it is also an important part of business culture that should be inculcated within the department. This is especially so for companies in the service industry where there is the maximum amount of interaction with customers and clients everyday. Sometimes, customers are stereotyped by the way they look i.e. their physical appearances and also the way they behave. Caucasians in Asian countries are often assumed to be tourists and more often than not, they will be given the treatment that tourists usually enjoy. On the other hand, Asians who travel to other Asia countries, especially those who are able to speak Chinese or the native languages will usually be given priority after the Caucasians. This is not a situation that occurs in all places but there definitely have been cases like these happening. Customers are often offended when this happens and it not only reflects badly on the company itself, it is a sign of a lack of professionalism. It can be prevented if we do not jump to conclusions too fast and instead, take the time to clear our doubts by actually asking to make sure our initial assumptions are true. By being aware of this tendency of people to jump to conclusions, leaders can educate their team members about it and hence effectively minimize the chances of this happening. This not only reflects well on the team itself but also on the leader. From the above examples, it is easy to see that general semantics is actually a theory that can be widely applied. The concepts of the theory itself are very general. Unlike the Rhetoric which is essentially used during public speaking, general semantics involves communication in our daily routines and practices. It can be applied to any situation and once learnt, it can be a great tool for understanding the reasons behind cases of miscommunication. This often happens due to a natural tendency to jump to conclusions or simply when people are too quick to make assumptions. It has thus been included in this fundamental set of communication theories that leaders should have knowledge of. General semantics is however, an important theory that "The Marketing Manager" should read about. Again, this is due to the fact that general semantics covers communication problems that may arise due to differences in character, culture or background. For "The Marketing Manager" who needs to ensure that his or product reaches the maximum number of consumers, general semantics will help in choosing the appropriate words that should be used for the specific situations. This comes out even more clearly when marketing managers have to deal with marketing in foreign countries. Knowing that the same word could have different meanings for people in other countries or cultures would remind them that they have to make the right choice for words or marketing strategies in order to achieve the results they wish to.

iii) Theory III: Critical Theory of Communication Approach to Organizations The "Critical Theory of Communication Approach to Organizations" was developed by Stanley Deetz, Rutgers University 's Communication Professor in order to insure the financial health of corporations while increasing the representation of diverse-and often noneconomic-human interests. Deetz realised that although economically, the world has been progressing and showing great results due to the growth of industries and companies, people 's lives have not been made better as a result of the economic growth. In fact, people 's lives have been made worse due to the increase in number of working hours which consequently means a decrease in the amount of time they have for resting and leisure. As factors like the quality of rest people get are considered non-economic factors, (so far they are also unmeasurable), they are often neglected. Hence, Deetz proposes a theory that would improve employee 's working experience and in turn, enhance their standard of lives in terms of fulfilling their emotional and spiritual needs. Deetz imagines democracy as an alternative in which stakeholders can reclaim responsibility and agency in the corporation.
This is a theory that is specifically aimed at business organizations and is a good reference for leaders who wish to create a conducive and productive environment in the working place. The new worker does not just take comfort in taking orders and carrying them out according to the manager 's instructions anymore. They wish to have a say in the way the company works; they would like the company to make a conscious effort to listen to the feedback they have and they also want to feel appreciated by the company. All in all, they want to have stakeholdership in the company. It might sound as if there are too many demands on the company by the employees, but these are not unreasonable demands as there are companies who are meeting them today. Employees feel a greater sense of ownership when the higher levels of management allow them to have a say of things and this also gives them a sense of pride for their own work. This would lead to greater productivity since employees know that their efforts would be recognised and it means that the company would have succeeded in catering to the needs of the employees. Eventually, companies that persist to hold onto their almost dictatorship-like control of the company will find that they would be falling behind the rest of the companies. Giving the staff a chance to participate in the decision-making process is beneficial, as it displays a willingness on the part of the company to accept comments and feedback from the employees. If the management is constantly asserting their power and control over the employees, without giving them any chance at all to voice their personal opinions or feelings, the staff will eventually become repressed. This means that in future, even if they were to have any constructive comments for the department or the company, they would still choose to keep to themselves rather than to say it out. This is a highly ineffective system to have in an organization as the employees and the staff are actually the people who are most familiar with the day-to-day operations of the company. Any problems or improvements that need to be carried out will actually be noticed first by the staff and the employees. They are the ones on the frontline most of the time, and hence in a way, their opinions and comments are the most valuable to the company. If the staff were to lose their trust and confidence in the company, they will not be willing to share these comments with the management as the company does not place any value at all on their views.
Moreover, for companies in the service industries, maintaining a good relationship with the customer or client is of the utmost importance for the company. Employees are actually the ones building and maintaining such relationships with the clients. When employees are given stakeholdership i.e. they are given a chance to take part in the decision-making process, they tend to take more pride in their work. When that happens, they not only display a strong sense of ownership of their work, they will also show great loyalty towards the company. When customers and clients complain or provide negative comments, they will also do their part for the company by explaining to the clients and at the same time, paying attention to the feedback from the customers. Usually, unless clients are very agitated, they often just give their comments to the customer service officers or directly to the staff who are serving them. With a lack of a vent through which these employees can convey constructive messages from the customers to the management, the management will never be able to work on these problems and even if they do, they would have spent extra time in trying to find out what these problems were when they could have just obtained the information directly from their staff.
We have already seen some of the economic benefits that "democratic participation" from the employees could bring to the company. Another beneficial aspect is also a chance for the company to fulfil their corporate social responsibility. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a company 's obligation to be accountable to all of its stakeholders in all its operations and activities with the aim of achieving sustainable development not only in the economical dimension but also in the social and environmental dimensions. Stakeholders are people whose actions would affect the company and vice-versa. Employees are thus stakeholders and companies should refrain from making important decisions without consulting the views of the employees first. This is especially true in cases of retrenchment when big companies tend to lay off thousands of workers at one time, often without any prior warning and much less any meeting with the staff beforehand. Corporate social responsibility is not a compulsory requirement that companies need to fulfill but more and more managers are beginning to see the benefits of corporate social responsibility. Being accountable to their stakeholders not only makes these stakeholders happy, it also makes the rest of the society happy. A healthy image of the company is projected and this could also indirectly help the company in terms of the level of trust customers place on the firm and eventually, economic profits.
This theory is actually the most applicable for "The CEO". Letting the staff have a participative role in the company is actually a kind of culture that does not just form overnight. It is even more difficult when a company is trying to switch from one that used to exercise total control over its entire staff to one that is willing to relinquish some reins of its control to the lower levels of management and certain responsibilities to the employees themselves. It thus has to be a kind of active movement throughout the company where all departments, levels and managers are consciously making an effort to create this new culture where the staff should not be afraid to voice out their own views and opinions. In order to do so, it must actually start right from the top, i.e. the highest level of management and it is only with the support and encouragement of people in the senior management roles like the CEO then can such a culture actually be created. The CEO sets the example for everyone in the company in this case and followers will always take the cue or lead from their leaders. When the rest of the managers see the CEO doing so, they will also naturally carry out the necessary changes in their own departments. Hence, in order to achieve success in trying to produce such an environment in the company, the CEO will have to be the first one to want to have this change in the company.
Communication is always the exchange of information between two parties and there has to be a complete cycle of exchange. This is the same between leaders and their followers. There is never actual communication if it is always the leader saying his view and the followers quietly obeying these orders. There must be a sufficient amount of interaction between these parties which means that followers must be given a chance to speak as well. Leaders can choose to not allow their followers to speak, but the consequences of such actions, though not serious now, would only become increasingly obvious as time goes by.
There have of course, been critics of Deetz 's theory. Most of them see it as "The Vase" - something which is ideal and sounds good to hear but is realistically not a possible thing to accomplish. After all, there are so many employees out there who are still working their guts out for the company even though they may not have been given any stakeholdership or participative rights in the company at all. If the situation has always been like that and continues to be like that, then we start to wonder what is wrong with keeping to the present situation. The truth is our younger generations of employees are starting to show such a trend of a desire for a certain amount of stakeholdership. They will not be content with having to do whatever their boss asks them to do. They will question and they will speak out if they have to. Eventually, companies will have to adapt to the working styles of these younger generations of workers. When that time comes, we will see that Deetz 's theory would actually be able to fulfill the objectives he had laid out in the beginning "creates better citizens and better social choices, and provides important economic benefits."

iv) Theory IV: Groupthink Irving Janis, Yale social psychologist first introduced the concept of groupthink in 1971. He originally defined groupthink as "a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members ' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action." "Cohesiveness is the degree of mutual interest among members. Highly cohesive groups may invest too much energy in maintaining goodwill in the group to the detriment of decision-making." Due to fear of going against the group, team members often end up agreeing with what the majority has to say although they may feel very strongly that they are correct. When the concept of Groupthink first came out, many were supporters of the theory and it was basically met with approval from all levels. Part of the reason why Groupthink is so popular could be due to the fact that it was kind of like a "catch-all" theory. Whenever any big and terrible decisions were made by organizations or groups, it was almost always attributed to the groupthink theory. People believed that the problem could only be a flawed decision-making process where the team collectively commits a mistake of not pointing out what was wrong with the decision that was going to be made and failing to come up with another better alternative. This is true to a pretty large extent as we can see in the following paragraphs.
There are many possible reasons why team members may be afraid of going against the group but usually, leaders are the main cause of such a flawed decision-making process. When meetings are held for a decision to be made, the leader will be the one chairing the meeting unless he or she specifically assigns the role to someone else in the team. The leader is thus now in control of the whole situation. Often, leaders do not realise how big an influence their presence at the meeting could affect the outcome of the decision-making process. Followers are always on the lookout for any signs of disapproval from the leader. This thus makes it difficult for them to freely voice out their own opinions if they worry that their views might anger the leader or the rest of the team. There are also leaders who use their power to ensure that they get the results they want. This is the symptom of "direct pressure on dissenters" from the Groupthink theory. They will deliberately put down those employees who protest against their ideas and show support and encouragement to those who do not. In the end, the team will observe that "going with the flow" would actually benefit them more since the boss does not approve of people who speak up against him or his ideas. In this way, the group ends up settling for a decision not after a careful weighing of the pros and cons of that choice but only because their leader is in support of that decision. They will also fail to come up with alternatives that might be better than the initial choice, again because the leader chooses to censor these other alternatives purely because he believes that the initial choice is good enough and hence there is no need to look for other better alternatives. At other times, it might not be the leader who is using his or her power to influence the team into making the decision he or she desires. Sometimes, it could be just that the rest of the team are too agreeable. This is a possible situation when all the members of the team are very amiable characters who place more priority on relationships with their team mates and the leaders then anything else. This is the "cohesiveness" property of the group that was mentioned in the definition of the theory earlier. The team becomes so "cohesive" that they become reluctant to go against the group due to fear of being treated like an "outsider". This is the "Out-group Stereotypes" symptom of the theory. It is then the leader 's responsibility to prevent this from happening by pushing the group to continue thinking of other alternatives when they seem to have settled on one choice very soon after the meeting has started. Encourage or support them by helping them communicate their ideas to the rest of the team if they encounter any problems and show an example by also coming up with more ideas. Eventually, the team will get into the momentum and start voicing out their concerns or new ideas. "Illusion of Invulnerability", and "Belief in Inherent Morality of the Group", also symptoms of groupthink, occur when the team possess too high an ego of themselves. This is a collective nature on the part of the whole team and could be the result of good performances in the past or just over-confidence about the capabilities of the team. Team members believe that whatever decision they make will definitely not fail because they are the ones who made the decision. Little elaboration needs to be made about why having such a mentality could have disastrous results. "Collective rationalization" is just a decision made by all the team members to accept the decision as it is. Instead of questioning further and bringing up more issues that could be a problem, they just collectively rationalize that the decision made should be correct and hence no further discussions are required. A lot of times "Illusion of Unanimity" also happens when the team chooses to take silence as a form of agreement. Although there could have been some heated discussion initially as one or two members insisted on their own stand, when they finally are verbally coerced into keeping quiet, the leader and the rest of the team would take their silence as agreement and go ahead with the decision. "Self-appointed Mind guards" are people who take it upon themselves to always support and protect the leader 's choice or idea. At the same time, they will also go against people who come up with other ideas as they view it as unnecessary since the leader 's idea is always the best. Not only does the theory conceived by Janis have a set of symptoms to describe the things that happen during the meeting itself that result in the wrong decision made, he also lists the conditions before the actual meeting itself that could have contributed to the final result. These conditions were mainly divided into two categories: structural faults of the organization and provocative situational context. "Structural faults of the organization" states the problems with the way the organization or company works on the whole which would naturally affect the actual meeting itself where the decision would be made in the end. It gives a macro view of the situation as the team members and the leaders are a part of the organization itself. If there are problems inherent in the way the organization is run, we know that these same problems would occur during the meeting. In other words, we can take the team itself and the leader as a sub-unit of the entire organization. These faults include like a lack of tradition of impartial leadership and homogeneity of members ' social background and ideology. Unless the leader who is chairing the particular meeting is capable of holding the meeting without subjecting it to the normal conditions of the organization 's culture, it can be predicted quite accurately that these faults would be the downfall of the team eventually.
"Provocative situational context" are external conditions that affect the emotional and mental states of the team and the leader, such that they are unable to focus on making the best decision. These could include stress to produce results from the meeting in the shortest time, low self-esteem and confidence on the parts of the members themselves to stand up to what they thought was right and excessive distractions from other factors that prevent the team from choosing what should be the most right decision etc.
It is imperative for all the different kinds of leaders to have an in-depth knowledge of the Groupthink theory. The decision-making process is unavoidable in the lives of these leaders and creating the right environment would promise a better discussion among the team members and eventually better results. As stated by Janis in his theory, there are certain antecedents that will set the stage for a cast to play out the scenes of a Groupthink situation. However, whether or not the cast eventually plays out those scenes, would depend on the director. In our case, the director would be the leaders who are chairing the meeting or in charge of the decision-making process. They will be the ones calling the shots and the cast, which will be made up of the team members will be looking up to them for directions. Hence, even though the stage has been set, the director has the control and should exercise the control to guide the cast in the right direction. When leaders have knowledge about the symptoms of the Groupthink situation, they can spot it when it occurs and take actions to prevent the team to make a decision under the conditions of a Groupthink. If the director knows that no one would want to buy tickets to watch a show of Groupthink being played out, just like a leader will know that a decision made under those conditions will not be a good one, he would be wise enough not to carry on making the mistake and lead the cast towards another direction instead.
However, it is in my personal opinion that the Groupthink theory is of extreme importance to "The Marketing Manager" and "The Self-Employed". By virtue of the fact that the marketing manager is in charge of the marketing department, which is responsible for the marketing activities for the company, the Groupthink theory is automatically a compulsory theory that he or she should have knowledge of. Coming up with marketing plans involves a lot of brainstorming sessions and eventually meetings where a decision is made. Groupthink not only prevents the team from coming up with a wide variety of ideas, it also causes them to fail in critically evaluating a choice before deciding on it. We all know that in marketing, ideas are almost like the lifeline of the department. Without ideas, there is no possibility of creativity or innovation at all. For the self-employed manager, because the company is often small, there is a need to draw on all the available resources from all the employees. If Groupthink occurs, and the employees are not fully able to express all their ideas and opinions, then the manager would really suffer because he or she would practically have to be the one solving all the problems and making all the decisions. This is an extremely ineffective and unproductive way of running the company. During the meeting itself, the leader should try to not impose his or her opinions too much on the rest of the team. Instead, it would be best for the leader to take a more passive role. This is to give the team members space to voice out their own opinions and induce in them a willingness to go against ideas that they think will not work, even if they may come from the leader himself. It has been suggested that the leader should take short breaks and leave the meeting room during that time. As mentioned before, leaders have a great influence on the rest of the team members and even if they do not speak up during the meeting, team members would still be wary of their presence. When they are around, their main purpose is to ensure that the meeting does not dip into a Groupthink state and if they sense that the team is about to, they will have to step in and do something. Groupthink is a very dangerous situation because it does not only occur for teams with problems in communicating. It can also happen for teams that are supposedly "cohesive". They can come to a decision fast without any major conflicts or heated discussion at all and they might attribute it to the fact that their team is "cohesive". The truth is it might be the opposite. The team is too cohesive to the extent that they do not wish to engage in any activities that could potentially endanger the relationships amongst the team members. It is thus up to the leader to observe such group dynamics and group trends. Leaders have the responsibility of leading the team in the right direction and when the team strays off, they will then have to guide them back.

v) Theory V: Genderlect Styles "Male-female conversation is cross-cultural communication." That is the idea proposed by Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University. Her main reason for saying this is that men and women just possess totally different conversational styles. She highlights the importance of this property about communication between men and women as the misunderstandings often get worse when people do not understand this point. "Most men and women don 't grasp that ‘talking through their problems ' with each other will only make things worse if their divergent ways of talking are causing the trouble in the first place." Genderlect Styles comes from her observation that men and women actually have different languages of communication. The language is not so much of whether it is English or French, but more of the way they communicate because they are men or women. I felt that I should include this theory as the last one in this section because miscommunication between the two genders in the workplace is becoming a common phenomenon. The problem gets even stickier when a woman is the one in control. Even though women in the workplace now are having more rights than they ever used to have, men still find it difficult to answer to a lady boss. Of course, there are men who can accept such a situation, but generally, the traditional mentality that men are somehow superior in comparison to women is still present. Women bosses should hence take into account that fact when they are working with their male subordinates, especially during their conversations with them. I will now talk about the few aspects of communication in which women may differ from men and how these cases may actually arise in the workplace. The one big difference between men and women is that women value relationships while men value status. This main difference will be the root cause for the variations in the way men and women communicate. Women emphasize on building and maintaining relationships with the people around them. Thus, they feel discomforted when conflicts arise and will try their best to avoid conflicts. Men, on the other hand, place more importance on their status. They thus need to feel that they are in control of the situation and the things around them. This is also part of the reason why men find it difficult to answer to a lady boss. One of the results of this difference shows significantly when we observe how a man and a woman react to a situation where they are unsure about something. The lady will not think twice about seeking help with the situation. To her, the most important thing is to do the thing right and if asking someone else for help is needed to complete the task, then she would do it. The case is the total opposite for the male. If they had a choice of asking and not asking, they would rather not ask. They feel that seeking for help is a sort of sign that they are incapable of handling the problem themselves. When this happens in the office and you happen to be the lady manager, try not to approach your male subordinate and ask if he needs help. It may seem like he obvious needs it but approaching him is actually worse because he would feel embarrassed by your action. However, the situation would not be the same if it is a female subordinate. If you do notice that she is having trouble coping with some task, going forward and volunteering yourself would actually be helpful towards your relationship with the female subordinate. She would be more than grateful to you and it would definitely signify the start of a great working relationship. As men often have a very big ego, it is important that people do not show any doubt of their capabilities. Sometimes, a well-meaning gesture to ask if men need help could end up backfiring. The same goes the other way. They value compliments a lot and if they have done well on their jobs, make a conscious effort to praise them. It matters even more to them, especially if you are the manager because you are a person of status in the company. Your words mean a lot to them so give them their deserved compliments whenever you can. If you should ever have to give your male subordinate a talk on their (negative) work performance, make sure you do it in your office, behind closed doors. The worst thing you can do is to give him a rundown of all his mistakes in front of the whole office, especially in front of the other male colleagues. Females will be angry with themselves for making a mistake but males will be angry with you for telling the rest of the world that they have made a mistake. They view it as something very humiliating and degrading although it may be the truth. Thus, you can show your understanding and let them uphold their pride by just having a talk with them behind closed doors. Another aspect of communication difference between men and women is regarding the other half of communication – listening. When women listen to someone else talk, they tend to show acknowledgement by nodding or making short remarks like "yeah" and will give their full attention to the other party through maintaining eye contact. Men on the other hand do not have the habit of doing that. They could actually continue with their own tasks while listening to you talk but that does not mean that they are not listening. This is why we often hear women asking their male partners or friends "Are you listening?" On top of this, men do not like to have women interrupt them when they are talking. As mentioned, they wish to have control of the situation and when they are talking, they also wish to have control over the conversation. This becomes a problem when women and men come together. The lady would just like the men to listen and agree with her while the man will keep trying to change the topic or carry off the topic from wherever the lady ended. Keeping this in mind, if you are a lady manager having a conversation with a male subordinate, let him finish speaking first before you offer your words of agreement. On the other hand, if you were talking to a female colleague, make sure you always show respect by maintaining eye contact with her. When you talk to a woman, she wants to know that you are listening to her and nodding or looking her in the eye are some things you can do to show her that you are listening. Women are also averse to conflicts and arguments because they view these as potentially harmful for relationships. To them, protecting the relationship is almost always the topmost priority because women become uncomfortable if they know that someone is angry with them or dislike them. This is very unlike men who see arguments, especially at the workplace as a kind of contest. We know that men treat their statuses as a vital part of their identity. They will thus feel unhappy, even angry if a woman wins them during the argument. There are of course exceptions. Not all men view their status as important an asset as their relationships with others. Not all women put relationships as their topmost priority above the rest. Leaders thus have to again, make observations of their team and make the suitable deductions about the characters and personalities of each member. The Genderlect Styles is useful for explaining some of the situations we might see during communication between the two genders in the office (but not limited to it). If we are able to explain why these situations occur, then there is the possibility of preventing them from happening. This theory is however very useful for helping female managers cope with the communication problems that may arise due to the different genderlect styles. It is slightly more difficult for the female leader to build up close and strong working relationships with her team as men view her as a form of threat to their male ego while women view her as someone "out of their league". By learning and understanding that communication between men and women is a kind of "intercultural communication", the female leader can adapt herself to communicate in a different style with men, unlike the normal style she uses for women. To be able to work well with women, the female leader has to minimize the distance between her and the rest of the team members. She should avoid putting herself "above the rest" and make the effort to talk more with the female followers as the only way to grow closer to them is through conversations. Women value the "bonds" with others and talking is a way of forming such bonds. For the male leader, learning about these genderlect styles will also help him to understand more about how his own gender communicates and in turn, help him to rectify some of the typical communication problems men face when talking with women. For example, men tend to want to be in control of their environment. This means that they also want to be in control during conversations with others. If the male leader could try to repress this tendency of a desire to always "lead" in the conversation, he may find himself capable of listening to some of the invaluable comments or suggestions that his female colleagues or team members may have to offer. Tannen 's theory of the different genderlect styles is also not in lack of its critics. Many have remarked that her observations regarding the communication style of men seem to make them worse people than women. The writer does feel that this is true, but only to a certain extent. Many of the points that were made by Tannen were echoed by readers, both men and women when it was published and however chauvinistic men seem to be portrayed by Tannen, it has been able to provide people with a guide to the diverse communication styles of men and women. Tannen has suggested that people use the "aha factor" to test the validity of her interpretation and that is what the writer recommends for leaders as well. When reading about Tannen 's observations, if they happen to match your previous experiences about communication with your team members, then it is almost a natural instinct to go "aha". Consequently, it means that her points are valid and are applicable to your own situation. Vice-versa, if you realise that your past experiences do not converge with her claims about the characteristics of the genderlect styles, then it is possible as mentioned, that your team members do not fall nicely under the categories of "women who value relationships" and "men who value status". You will then have to analyse the situation and apply the theory selectively.

iv) Other Theories I will include a few other theories in this section that I believe would be helpful to the leaders but unlike the earlier theories, they will not be explored in length. They are basically recommendations for further reading up by leaders themselves depending on their own kind of leadership role. No one single theory will be enough to help leaders in coping with the communication issues they face everyday but certain theories will prove to be exceptionally helpful as they are able to cater to the specific needs of certain leaders. Leaders thus have to find out for themselves which are the theories that are the most helpful to them and explain the communication problems that they face the most often during their jobs as leaders.
Social Penetration Theory The Social Penetration Theory was developed by social psychologists Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor who proposed that people become closer through a process called "self-disclosure". They view an individual 's personality as a multi-layered onion in which the outer layers represent characteristics like the physical appearances of a person and the inner layers represent the deeper emotions and lesser-known traits of a person 's character. "The Social Penetration Theory has been embraced (and adapted) by many theorists in communication studies and has played a prominent role about communication as a central process in the development of relationships." This will prove especially helpful in this case as we would like to look at how leaders can improve their relationships with others and through that improve their effectiveness as a leader. When two people initially meet, telling the other party your name, where you stay, which college you come from are some details that would form the outer layer of your "personality onion". This basic biographical information is normally exchanged between two strangers who first meet under normal circumstances. We seldom find people who are willing to tell others their deepest secrets and innermost spiritual thoughts during a first encounter with a stranger. This is because people tend to be wary of each other during the first meeting. They still do not have enough information from the other party to form a judgment of what kind of person the stranger is. In situations like these, it is thus highly unlikely that they will trust the person enough to tell the person everything about themselves. However, as time passes by and these two people get to know each other better, more and more layers of the onion will be peeled. This process of letting the other party know more about oneself is the process of "self-disclosure". Altman and Taylor believe that this process will actually be the reason why people become closer. In other words, people grow closer through an exchange of intimate information about themselves, beyond the superficial details about your name and the place you stay. Hence, for the leader who needs to command respect but at the same time be approachable to the team members, a close examination of the Social Penetration Theory would prove to be quite useful. Leaders should disclose enough about themselves to their team members such that they feel comfortable enough to come up to the leader to voice any problems they have with the team. They can do this through conversations with the team members in smaller groups, maybe two to three to find out more about them and at the same time, let them know more about you. When leaders deliberately draw themselves away from the rest of the team, an invisible barrier is naturally formed. The team members find the leader a very distant person from them and this makes it difficult if the leader wants to get suggestions from the team, especially feedback. The team may be hesitant to reveal what they feel to the leader as they are unsure how the leader would take their feedback. In order to avoid trouble, they would rather speak less than to say more. Eventually, the most constructive comments might not be voiced out and the team eventually breaks up into 2 parts – the leader and the rest of the team members. This theory is especially helpful for "The Middle-Level Manager" and "The Self-Employed". The middle level management is the only link through which the higher levels of management can find out more about what the staff and employees feel. Hence, leaders in the middle level management of the company (especially in the large and multinational companies), will find that it is pertinent for them to build up close working relationships with the employees as only then, will the staff trust them enough to give them their feedback. For the self-employed leader, usually if the company is small, the level of self-disclosure on the part of the leader would naturally be high. This is because the level of interaction between the leader and the rest of the team is very high. This should always be the case as the self-employed leader needs a lot of co-operation from the rest of the team. A low level of self-disclosure would only mean a weaker working relationship as the team does not understand the leader well enough. Thus, leaders need to maintain a fine balance of self-disclosure such that they reveal enough about themselves for the team to have a better understanding of them but not so much that it is difficult for the rest of the team to treat the leader as a higher level of authority anymore.
Functional Perspective on Group Decision Making This is another theory that helps leaders with the decision-making process. The theory, conceived by Communication professors Randy Hirokawa (University of Iowa) and Denis Gouran (Pennsylvania State University) believe that the decision-making process needs to fulfil a list of four functions in order to produce a high-quality solution. There is no one function that is more important than the rest. Instead, Hirokawa and Gouran believe that all the functions have to be met in order for the final aim to be reached. Functional theory attempts to answer the key questions of how and why communication makes the difference in decision-making groups. The first function is that of an analysis of the problem. There is a need to identify issues that may become problems even though they are potentially harmless now. An effective team, together with their leader should be able to look out for such issues and point them out such that they can be resolved before the situation turns for the worse. The next function is goal setting. The entire team must be clear about what is their ultimate aim. What are their considerations and which of these should be prioritised above the rest? Without a clear goal, there is no way the team can move forward because it is like doing something without knowing the exact reason for doing it. Goals are necessary for the team to know which is the direction they should be moving towards and from there, they can then look for ways to move in that direction. The third function is the identification of alternatives. This is important because the final choice made should not be made because there are no more other options. Without a chance to compare between different options, the team can never do an objective pro-and-con analysis of the situation because there is only one available choice. The last function is a critical evaluation of positive and negative characteristics. After the alternatives are pointed out, the team now has to do an in-depth analysis of all the choices available. This is to ensure that all aspects of the alternative have been looked at and the final choice should be one that fits with all the team 's requirements. The functional perspective presents the ideal decision-making process in a very orderly and systematic manner. This makes it easier for the leader to know how he or she should proceed and all the steps that should be taken to ensure that a high-quality solution is reached. Hirokawa and Gouran emphasize a need to participate in the decision-making process in the most open-minded state possible. The responsibility of the leader is thus to prevent any one person from dominating the whole discussion because that one person strongly believes that his or her solution is the only solution. When this happens, the rest of the group tends to give in to this particular individual eventually. Thus, leaders can refer to the theory as a framework for their decision-making process. However, the actual decision-making process is often not so simple. There are many factors that need to be considered and these tend to slow down the whole entire process by a significant bit. When that happens, the one most important thing that leaders have to do is to keep the team on track at all times. Remind them of what are the priorities and goals that need to be achieved at appropriate times. As long as the team stays focussed on the ultimate goals, it should still be possible to fulfil all the four functions of the theory.

Face-Negotiation Theory Developed by Stella Ting-Toomey and her colleagues at the California State University, Fullerton, face negotiation theory provides a basis for predicting how people will accomplish face-work in different cultures. Stella Ting-Toomey assumes that people of every culture are always negotiating "face". "Face" here is a representation of the image in public we present to others of ourselves. Depending on the different cultures an individual comes from, Ting-Toomey believes that the individual will then have a desire to present a different kind of "face". In short, countries where people often prioritise the individual before anything else would tend to want to protect their own face. On the other hand, countries with a culture of putting the group 's needs above the individual needs will see the individual trying to protect the other party 's face. Face work is the communication behaviours that people use to build and protect their own face and to protect, build, or threaten the face of another person. We all know that depending on the situation and people involved, there are different ways to handle a conflict. Most students of conflict management list five distinct responses to situations where there is an incompatibility of needs, interests, or goals – avoiding, obliging, compromising, dominating and integrating. Hence, according to Ting-Toomey, one of these five responses can be chosen and matched to the situation according to which is more important, the "self-face" or the "other-face"? In other words, Americans who have a culture of caring more about their own image would tend to choose responses like "dominating" or "integrating". This will be the "self-face" example where people are more concerned with doing things the way they want to because they believe that they are right. Asians on the other hand, will tend to choose the other responses like "obliging", "compromising" and "avoiding". This is due to their concern for the other party 's face, and they often put into consideration the other party 's feelings before their own. This theory is useful to leaders when they negotiate with clients of different cultures and this is going to become increasingly common with time due to the effects of globalisation. If leaders can predict the possible negotiation styles that would be employed by the other parties, this would also help them in choosing the appropriate negotiation style they should use.

CHAPTER 4:
Effective Communication Right from the beginning of the paper, it has been stated very clearly that communication is a 2-way process where there must be an exchange of information. It is not merely a transmission of information by the speaker. It is a process that involves both parties and only when both parties have played their roles well can we say that effective communication has occurred. During a conversation between two people, both of them will play the part of a speaker and a listener at one point or another. It is thus important that these two people are equipped with the skills of listening and the ability to communicate their messages clearly and effectively to the other party. When we talk about communicating our messages clearly, it is not just about choosing the correct words and pronouncing them accurately. It is about putting your ideas across in a way that is not misleading. We often use metaphors in our language without realising the impact of using these metaphors. Metaphors can be confusing and misleading at times, especially when the other party 's interpretation of the metaphors is different from what you intended on saying. For example, during a discussion between a manager and his employee about their latest project, the manager may say something like "We need to continue supplying the train with coal in order to give it the power to continue moving." In the case here, the manager is actually referring to their project as the train which has already departed from the train station and moving towards the final stop which is the ending result of their project. However, the "coal" used here could be the source of a miscommunication. The manager may have referred to the "coal" as constant hard work and diligence from the employees to make sure that the train 's speed does not slacken. The employee, on the other hand may think that "coal" is used to represent money that must be constantly supplied to the project in order to keep it going. As you can see, from the manager 's point of view, he may think that there could only be one interpretation of the metaphor – his own interpretation. In reality, people often see things differently from ourselves and we can never know for sure if our ideas have been translated correctly by the other party.
This is when the idea of communication theories can come in. In General Semantics, we learnt that the same word can have many different meanings for different people depending on the culture, background or gender of the person. With this concept in mind, leaders will not assume that words or metaphors they use will definitely be received in exactly the same way they had wanted it to be. The safest way, is thus to always make the effort to check with the other party how the information has been interpreted. The other way is to minimize the use of metaphors during your conversations, especially if you are unsure of the impact of such metaphors. Metaphors can be very powerful tools for public speaking purposes but leaders must always be careful about the use of them. If leaders feel that they understand their audience very well and can make likely predictions of how the audience would interpret their metaphors, then it would be good to use them. Although leaders cannot check with the audience about their interpretation of the metaphors unlike a one-to-one conversation with another person, leaders can give an explanation of their metaphors. By giving a short elaboration about why they chose the particular metaphor to represent their current situation, they can put it in more explicit terms the context in which the metaphors were used.
Other than putting across their messages clearly, leaders will also want to make sure that their messages have been delivered effectively. In other words, has the other party received your message and is the other party convinced by what you are saying. In such a situation, we can then use communication theories like The Rhetoric that emphasize on the means of persuasion to analyse the situation. The theory is a guide for how leaders can plan their speeches or dialogues to make sure that they are received in the most positive way. Not only do we want to let people know about our ideas, we would also want people to support our ideas. Hence, we can see that it is possible for us to communicate our messages to the other party clearly and effectively with the help of communication theories.
There is however, another vital part of communication and that is the listening part. Unfortunately, listening is unlike all the previous issues about communication. There is no one specific theory that can actually teach us how to listen. It is a skill that is acquired over time and experience in interacting and talking with people. It is not an easy skill to master and it is also not something that comes naturally with intelligence. A certain amount of intelligence is definitely required to understand the words that are used in conversations or speech, but listening is necessary for us to process these words in the first place. We need to be able to catch the messages that the person is putting across throughout the time the person is speaking and this requires a great amount of effort and concentration. Why? This is because our brain functions in such an efficient manner that we almost always think much faster than we speak. In other words, our brain is able to work in a much faster way to process what people have spoke than the rate at which people are speaking. This then creates a chance for our mind to wander. We often scold people for letting their minds wander and not paying attention to the speaker. The truth is, most of the time, we cannot help it. Our brain finds it difficult to slow down to accommodate to the rate of speech of the speaker and it becomes inevitable for us to think about other things when the other party is speaking.
However, now that you know why your mind wanders, there is something you can do to stop it. In order to stop your mind from being distracted by issues that has nothing to do with the conversation, you can utilise the rest of your brain power to actually analyse the conversation. According to a study done by people who possess good listening skills, here are actually four processes that their mind goes through in order to be able to listen well.
1. The listener will think ahead of the speaker by trying to anticipate what the speaking is going to say next and where this conversation might possibly end up in.
2. The listener evaluates the evidence used by the speaker and sees if he is convinced by the evidence.
3. The listener does a summary of the points made by the speaker at regular, short intervals during the conversation to have a mental review of what has been said so far.
4. The listener looks out for any hidden meanings that the speaker may have within the words used or in the body language of the speaker. This includes facial expressions and body postures which can be very good indicators of how the speaker is feeling. From all the above, we can see that good listening skills can only be acquired through time and practice. There is no sure way of guaranteeing good listening skills with any communication theory. Leaders thus need to train themselves to be able to listen well. An understanding of the reasons why people do not listen well can also help us as knowing the causes can guide us towards finding the solutions. The other part about listening well is actually regarding body language and paralinguistics. People display a lot about themselves in their body language and leaders can make a lot of inferences through the careful observation of others ' body language. Facial expressions, for one are fairly good indicators of how people feel. Sagging faces usually mean that the person is feeling unhappy or ‘down ' while knitted eyebrows often mean that the person is unsure about something or does not agree with it. Body postures can also give us information about a person. Someone who tends to put their hands on their hips when they are talking could be a fairly authoritative person. Leaning against the table could be a sign that the person is bored or tired with what is being said. It is however, important to note that interpretations about body language are very subjective forms of information regarding a person. There could be many factors that contribute to a person feeling the way he is feeling at a certain time and it may have nothing to do with the speaker or the contents of the speech. We must keep in mind this fact and not make firm deductions regarding a person 's reaction from his or her body language. Facial expressions and body postures are only a form of guide to tell us how the other party feels about what we are saying. That aside, it is possible to use body language to access the situation and maybe adapt yourself and your speech accordingly to the body language displayed by your audience or the listener. Again, this is a skill that comes with practice in making observations about other people and inferring from these observations information about the person. Paralinguistics is the study of paralanguage which includes the tone and quality of voice, pitch, pacing of speech, and sounds such as sighs or grunts. A leader can incorporate some of these things into his or her speech to create a better effect. For example, a serious and solemn speech would require a lower tone and a slower pace of speech. This is to match the contents of the speech and delivery so that in this way your audience can receive your speech in a better manner. In conclusion, effective communication is made up of two very important functions. There is no effective communication without either one of them and leaders have to recognise this. An effective communicator needs to be able to communicate his or her messages effectively and clearly. The study of communication theories can help leaders with this part of process and once leaders grasp the technique of being able to apply the theories to their own situations, they should be able to bring across their intended messages without fail. On the other hand, there is also the listening function that needs to be fulfilled. Listening is a skill that cannot be taught through any communication theories although leaders can learn from studies done about listening to improve their listening skills. It is thus not possible to just depend on the communication theories alone to succeed in being able to communicate effectively. Having said all these, it is in the writer 's opinion that the study of communication theories alone cannot help a leader to become an effective communicator. There are other factors involved like their listening skills, the ability to infer information from others ' body language and paralanguage. There is hence a likelihood that leaders can fail to communicate effectively even though they have acquired all the knowledge about communication theories that is required under their leadership roles.

CHAPTER 5:
Applications
In this section, I will be using a few case studies and imaginary scenarios to demonstrate how the knowledge we have gained about communication theories can be applied in real-life situations. Knowing about a theory and its history does not mean that you will know how to apply it to real-life situations. Hence, this section will be a guide to how leaders can go about analysing, observing and applying the theories as they carry out their role as a leader.
i) Case Study I: Susan B. Anthony on Women 's Right to Vote At a time when women had little rights in society, Susan B. Anthony was courageous enough to stand up for her own rights as a woman. Born on February 15, 1820 in Adam, Massachusetts, she was brought up in a Quaker family with long activist traditions. The following speech was given by her when she casted an illegal vote during the presidential election of 1872 as women were not allowed to vote at that time.
Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen 's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny.
The preamble of the Federal Constitution says:
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people - women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government - the ballot.
For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity.
To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every household - which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord, and rebellion into every home of the nation.
Webster, Worcester, and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office.
The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several states is today null and void, precisely as is every one against Negroes.
Susan B. Anthony – 1873 I will be using Aristotle 's Rhetoric to analyse her speech and this will be done according to the three areas of proof – the Logical Proof, the Emotional Proof and the Ethical Proof. Anthony states very clearly, from the beginning of her speech what is that that she hopes to prove through her argument – that her vote at the presidential election should not be a crime as she had "simply exercised my citizen 's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution". In a speech like this, we have to understand that there could be a few general and specific premises, leading to some sub-conclusions before coming to the final conclusion. The important thing to note is that the whole argument has to hold together. It does not matter how many premises there are as long as the premises all lead to the sub-conclusions which would eventually lead to the conclusion. Her first general premise is that according to the preamble of the Constitution, it is "we, the people of the United States" and not "we, the male citizens" that make up the country. Since the Constitution itself does not separate the country into the male citizens and the female citizens, so why is it that only the male citizens are granted the right to vote? In this case, her specific premise would be that "women are a part of the people of the United States". Hence, the sub-conclusion for this part would be that "women should be granted the same rights as men." So far, we see that her argument is flowing in a logical manner and she has presented compelling evidence via the Constitution to support her stand. Her next premise is how the Constitution mentions "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" with "ourselves" and not to the "half of ourselves" as the emphasis. Her sub-conclusion for this part would thus be that since women do make up a part of "ourselves", they should be allowed to have their blessings of liberty. Her last premise is that "all persons are citizens" and the specific premise is that "women are persons". This would eventually lead us to the final conclusion that "women are citizens" and hence citizens should be given the right to vote. If we take a more detailed look at the Logical Proof of her speech, we will realize that she actually states all her premises, unlike Aristotle 's rhetoric which says that withholding the enthymeme and letting the audience fill in the missing premise themselves will form a more convincing argument. However, I feel that the last paragraph of her speech in which she asks "are women persons?" she managed to create a different effect which was just as convincing. In asking that question, she was not waiting for a reply. Instead, it was purely to create an effect as we all know that women are persons. She then says "And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not." This is only to strengthen her point earlier that women are persons as she believes that this is an argument that cannot be countered. We can say that Anthony 's Logical Proof is strong in her speech and her premises and conclusions are able to link up with each other. When leaders make a speech, they can employ techniques that they feel can enhance their speech even though it may not come from a communication theory or the theory actually advises against it. Theories have to be applied in context and it could have been years since they were first conceived. The Rhetoric was an idea that Aristotle came up with two thousand over years ago and it is very likely that certain situations could call for extra measures to enhance how the theory itself works. Hence, leaders should not feel restrained by what they have learnt about the theories. Try them and test if they are valid. If they are, continue using them. If they are not, look for other theories that do agree with your experiences. Next, we will look at the Emotional Proof of Anthony in her speech. Looking at her speech, we realize that she has dedicated one whole entire paragraph specifically for the purpose of evoking in the women who hear her speech a sense of being treated unfairly. She uses phrases like "an odious aristocracy" and "a hateful oligarchy of sex" deliberately to evoke feelings of anger in the women. In this way, her speech has almost become one intended on putting down the men in the country and rallying the women to go against these men. The writer feels that this is not a recommended course of action as it makes her argument an extremely prejudiced one. She may be able to convince the women of her cause but the men of the country will only feel even more angered at the way she was putting them down. Even though the logical proof of her argument is valid, the men will not be able to accept what she is saying as it goes against their own thoughts and beliefs. For leaders, they must know that their speech should reach out to all that they are trying to convince. Just succeeding at persuading a part or some parts of the audience is not enough. They have to be able to persuade their entire audience in order to communicate their message effectively. Hence, leaders must be careful with the way they try to evoke emotions in the audience. For Anthony, she managed to evoke the right emotions in the women but totally wrong emotions of resentment in the men. A fine balance should be worked out by leaders in their speech to prevent such a situation from occurring. Finally, the Ethical Proof of Anthony would be concerned with her perceived intelligence, virtuous character and her goodwill. People who listen to her speech would know that she is a women rights ' activist and this is not an advantageous fact for her as they will view her as prejudiced towards women. This is especially unhelpful with the men as they will almost certainly "shut-off" once they know that a women rights ' activist is the one making the speech. This situation can be applied to the workplace as well. When leaders seem like they have a natural disposition towards certain people or certain views, the audience will naturally be unconvinced by their speech if the contents of the speech include arguing for these people or views. For example, if a leader is known for his prejudice towards a certain policy and he now has to give a speech regarding whether the policy should be retained or not. The audience will take into account the fact that he is prejudiced against the policy in the first place and evaluate his argument even more critically. Thus, the rhetoric is actually extremely helpful as a guide for leaders who need to know how they should structure their speech. This case study is merely a brief example of how the rhetoric can be applied to analyse a speech. There are in fact, many other points that can be evaluated if leaders wish to look at this topic in detail. Speeches are usually made before a live audience which means that the speaker will also be communicating through his or her body language to the audience. Body language is capable of evoking emotions in the audience as well. In short, an effective speech has to take care of many different areas and like what Aristotle said, "An effective communicator is one who takes care of all the available means of persuasion."

ii) Case Study II: The Challenger Disaster The Challenger space shuttle was launched on the cold morning of January 28, 1986 from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Within minutes, the space shuttle exploded in mid-air and all who were on board were killed instantly. The nation was shocked by the accident but the investigation in the next few months only managed to reveal details that were even more shocking. The truth was the ‘accident ' had been anticipated by engineers from Morton Thiokol who were the contracted engineers by NASA. During a teleconference meeting on the night before the launch, these worries were brought up. However, an accumulation of factors that will be analyzed in the following paragraphs resulted in the engineers ' worries being pushed aside and the launch to be carried out as per what was agreed.
The following information has been taken from the website http://www.casesite.com/chall/docs/vol1/p2pg4.htm

The teleconference meeting was held on the night of January 27th, between Morton Thiokol, Marshal Space Flight Centre and the Kennedy Space Centre. The vital parts of the space shuttle in question are actually a pair of "O-rings" that have to seal a joint opening fast enough in order to allow the space shuttle to launch successfully. For over one hour, Thiokol engineers, led by Roger Boisjoly, presented data suggesting that because of the cold weather, the rubber O-rings would be harder than usual and therefore might not be capable of sealing the joint opening quickly enough.
Boisjoly (at MTI, Utah): "I was asked to quantify my concerns, and I said I couldn 't. I couldn 't quantify it. But I did say I knew it was 'away from goodness ' in the current data base."
Mulloy (at Kennedy Space Centre): "About half-way through, after we had looked at all the data, the conclusions and recommendations charts that Mr. Lund (from Morton Thiokol) had prepared came in. And the logic for his recommendation, which did not specifically address 'don 't launch 51-L. ' What is said was, 'Within our experience base we should not operate any Solid Rocket Motor at any temperature colder than we have previously operated one," which was 53o. ' "
Boisjoly: "Right after we stopped, our managers were asked for their launch decision. Joe Kilminster [Thiokol 's Vice President of Space Boosters; the first official "link" in the NASA Launch Decision Chain] said that he would not recommend launch based on the engineering position just presented."
Mulloy: "Now I fully understood what Mr. Kilminster was saying at that time: He did not say, "The engineering data says that you can 't launch." He was saying "I 've got an engineering recommendation here and based upon that, I certainly cannot recommend launch... This was a rather surprising conclusion, based on data that didn 't seem to hang together, so I challenged that."
The shocking thing that has evolved during the meeting is that the burden of proof has been placed on the engineers from Morton Thiokol. The engineers have been asked to prove absolutely beyond any reasonable doubts that it was not safe to launch the space shuttle. In other words, Morton Thiokol was under great pressure to prove their case or to take back their words that the space shuttle should not be launched.
Boisjoly: "Larry Mulloy then asked George Hardy [at Marshall], who was the chief engineer at NASA for Solid Rocket Boosters, for his opinion, and George responded that he was 'appalled at the Thiokol recommendation. ' But George also added that he 'would not recommend launching over the contractor 's objection. ' George Hardy started the pressure, then Larry Mulloy escalated it with comments like, "My God, Thiokol! When do you expect me to launch? Next April?" and "The eve of a launch is a hell of a time to be generating new launch commit criteria!

It is becoming increasingly clear what is happening here. A case of Groupthink has occurred. Morton Thiokol engineers have become the out-group stereotypes. The rest of the team has expressed obvious unhappiness over Morton Thiokol 's recommendation to not launch the space shuttle. This is also putting a lot of pressure on Morton Thiokol to retract their case. The direct pressure on dissenters which would be the engineers on Morton Thiokol was beginning to shift the teleconference meeting away from its main priority – to determine if the space shuttle was safe enough for launch. It has now become a case of proving that the space shuttle was not safe for launch.
Boisjoly: "One of my colleagues at the meeting [Brian Russell] summed it up best: This was a meeting where the determination was to launch, and it was up to us to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was not safe to do so. This is in total reverse to what the position usually is in a pre-flight conversation or a readiness review. It is usually exactly the opposite of that.

We later realize that Mulloy could have felt the stress to launch the Challenger as NASA managers had already postponed the launch three times previously. An overzealous desire by Mulloy to launch the Challenger could have resulted in him censoring himself from the data that was presented by the Morton Thiokol engineers. He chose to believe that it was Morton Thiokol that had to prove their case and if they could not, then the launch should go ahead. This converges with the Groupthink theory where Janis lists a ‘Provocative Situational Context ' that would set the stage for Groupthink. In this case, the invisible pressure put on Mulloy by himself affected the decision-making process and the way he evaluated the case presented by Morton Thiokol. Other than this, investigations later also concluded that the members of the meeting were operating on a state of "minimal sleep".
According to the "Human Factors Analysis" included in the Presidential Commission Report, "certain key managers obtained only minimal sleep the night before the teleconference or had arisen so early in the morning that they had been awake and on duty for extended periods." George Hardy and Wayne Littles, Marshal Space Flight Centre 's Associate Director of Engineering, for example, had been "on duty" since midnight the night before (Hardy operating on 2 1/2 hours sleep: Littles, on 2 hours); Larry Mulloy had been up since 5 a.m. Fatigue was almost certainly a contributing factor to the "testiness" of some of the teleconferencing participants.

In other words, the members of the meeting were not participating in their best physical states possible. On top of that, the meeting that had by now lasted for about one and a half hours was not yielding the results that were needed by both parties. NASA managers wanted to launch and the data presented by Morton Thiokol did not change this fact. On the other hand, Morton Thiokol was getting tired of having to defend their case while NASA continued to challenge their recommendations. The last straw came when Joe Kilminster requested "a five minute, off-the-line caucus to re-evaluate the data;" in effect, asking for a break in the telecon. The fact was there was also pressure acting on Morton Thiokol to deliver what NASA managers wanted to hear. Just 6 days earlier, NASA had announced it was looking for a second source for rocket boosters, threatening Thiokol 's exclusive contract with the Agency. This meant that the management of Morton Thiokol had two choices – they could either insist on their stand even though they could be absolutely sure that it was not safe to launch the space shuttle and risk incurring the wrath of NASA managers or they could give NASA the "green light" to launch, risking the chances that something could very possibly happen to the Challenger during its launch the next morning. It then became clear during the offline meeting at Morton Thiokol that the management was going to agree to the launch. Thiokol 's senior vice president, Jerry Mason, said to his Vice President of Engineering, Bob Lund, and told him: "Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat." It was not an issue about safety anymore; it was an issue about saving the company. Eventually, when Morton Thiokol resumed the meeting with NASA managers, the go-ahead was given to launch the space shuttle and the rest – is history. We would think that this would have been an obvious decision from the start. The engineers were making a very strong recommendation that it was not advisable to launch The Challenger. However, NASA managers and eventually the Morton Thiokol management were not in favour of this recommendation. They did not want the launch to postpone yet another time. Morton Thiokol did not want to lose their contract with NASA. The group had lost their focus of ensuring the safety of the space shuttle. Blinded by these distractions, it is easy to see that the Challenger disaster could have been replayed anywhere else. Often, decision-making is a complicated process that involves many different parties and their respective priorities. Once the priorities of the individuals shift away from the group 's priority, problems will start to occur. The Challenger is a good example of Groupthink but it is after all, only an example. As long as leaders fail to take it as a lesson, history will always repeat itself again.

iii) Imaginary Scenario I Annie is the supervisor of the Administrative department in your company. She has a total of six people under her whom she has grown to work very closely with. However, one of them, a man named Bob has not been performing very well recently. He has been coming into the office late and leaving the office early and often takes leave from his work. This was not the case last time. Bob used to be a conscientious worker who got along very well with the rest of his colleagues as well. Then, yesterday Bob made a very big mistake in his work. Angered by his slackened work performance the previous few weeks and the mistake that was made, Annie finally blew her top with Bob in front of the rest of the department. Now, the two of them no longer enjoy the close working relationship they had shared previously. If you were Annie, what should you have done? Gathering information from what we have learnt, this was what Annie should have done: Have a one-on-one talk with Bob when she realized that his work performance had gone done considerably over the past few weeks. Look out for signs of trouble from his body language. If she had made the effort to observe Bob, she would have realized he was often dragging his feet around the office and he always had a blank look on his face when she was talking to him. During the one-on-one talk with him, she finally found out what was the problem. His wife had met with an accident and was now in a state of coma in the hospital. His absence from work was due to the frequent visits to the hospital. He came to the office late and went home early because he had to send his children to school and fetch them from the nanny 's place. Throughout the whole talk with Bob, Annie always listened attentively and kept her comments to herself until he had finished talking. She then offered a solution to Bob. For the next three months, he could work from home instead of having to come to the office everyday. However, he must make sure that he continues to produce up-to-standard work. She stressed that this was an exceptional case and she was treating it as one. Bob is extremely grateful to Annie for her kind understanding and promises to not let her down. Unfortunately, the next day in the office and the last day for Bob before he started working from home, he made the big mistake. Annie was very angry but she decided not to confront Bob in front of the rest of the colleagues. Instead, she called him to her office and asked for an explanation. Annie knew that Bob would be very embarrassed and humiliated if she had scolded him in front of the office. She also knows that hurting Bob 's male ego would mean hurting their working relationship with each other. Bob apologized profusely to her and Annie realizes that it was not totally his fault. There were other factors involved and all these contributed to the mistake that was made. Through this short scenario, we have seen the application of Genderlect Styles and the use of body language to tell something about a person. The same situation can be handled in two totally opposite ways and result in two very different situations. Annie and Bob could either end up as partners turned "part-ers" or their relationship could have grown stronger through this experience. Hence, learning about the right way of handling a situation can go a long way to help leaders with their relationships.

iv) Imaginary Scenario II Mike and Susan are both supervisors in the company. However, Mike the head of the marketing department while Susan is the head of the logistics department. The company is now planning to launch a new product and Mike and Susan are now having a meeting to discuss about the marketing department 's plans for the new product. The conversation between Mike and Susan goes like this:
Mike: We would like to organize a road show every weekend for the next two months at ten different locations simultaneously to increase the public 's awareness of our new product.
Susan: That is going to be a logistics ' nightmare!
Mike: But you said the previous time that this could be done.
Susan: No, I did not.
Mike: Yes, you did!

The conversation goes on like this for the next fifteen minutes while both Susan and Mike argue their guts out about whether Susan agreed that the aggressive marketing strategy that Mike and his team had come up with could have been done. The truth is Susan did mention that the strategy could be carried out. However, at the time when she said that, Mike 's plan was to hold the road show at only three different locations simultaneously. Hence, between the last meeting and the meeting now that he is having with Susan, his team had changed the plan to increase the number of locations to ten. Without asking Susan, Mike had assumed that Susan 's "Yes, it can be done" would apply even if they changed their plan slightly. Unfortunately, Mike 's assumption that it was only a ‘slight ' change of plan was in fact a ‘big ' change for Susan and her department. To plan a campaign like that involving ten different locations at one time was a big logistics problem for Susan as she had to make sure that all the locations had someone from her department present. However, there were only seven people in total in her department, including herself and she might have to move around among the locations instead of staying at one place for the whole time. The fundamental concerns for both departments are significantly different and both Mike and Susan should recognize that fact. It is thus disastrous to merely assume that what you and your department think would be the same as what another department and their supervisor thinks. According to General Semantics, people could have different interpretations and reactions to the same word or idea and instead of assuming about what the other party thinks it is best to verify their assumptions with the other party. Very often, this is how cases of miscommunication can arise. Jumping to conclusions about a certain situation will not help in solving the problem. Hence, the most effective way to go about handling cases like these is always to check and verify. If this had been done by Mike and Susan, their conversation should go something like this:
Mike: We would like to organize a road show every weekend for the next two months at ten different locations simultaneously to increase the public 's awareness of our new product.
Susan: That is going to be a logistics ' nightmare!
Mike: But you said the previous time that this could be done.
Susan: No, I did not. The plan you gave me the last time was the same as this?
Mike: No, it was not. Due to concerns by my department that the campaign might not be far-reaching enough if we only hold it in three locations, we have decided to increase that number to ten.
Susan: However, I only have six men under me and even if it is including me, we will still not have enough manpower to handle ten different locations.
Mike: Oh, if it is about manpower, my team has agreed to help out during the road shows as well. Including the eight people in the marketing team and me, that should make the total number sixteen. Would that be enough manpower?
Susan: Yes, that would be enough.

CHAPTER 6:
Conclusion

It is now time for us to look at the initial hypothesis and question how valid it may be. The title of this paper was "How can communication theories help leaders to communicate more effectively?" The answer to that is communication theories are unable to support leaders with information about the whole process of communication. Effective communication involves the exchange of ideas that cannot occur without listening as well. Communication theories can and do help leaders with their abilities to convey their messages in a clear and effective manner. However, the other part about communication which involves careful listening to the other party is a skill that has to be picked up and practiced by the leader himself. Leaders can refer to studies about communication for information regarding listening, looking out for indicators in body language and paralanguage but these studies have nothing to do with any specific communication theory. They are basically studies generally about communication. In other words, leaders cannot refer to any one communication theory to help them with their listening skills. Since communication theories can only help leaders with one part of the communication process, it thus means that it is possible for a leader to be an effective communicator even if he or she knows about all the different kinds of theories that would help in their leadership roles. Hence, we cannot say for sure that a leader is an ineffective communicator merely because he or she does not know about any communication theories. There are other factors involved that need to be taken into account and one of these factors is the ability of the leader to be able to listen well. So what does this mean for leaders? Communication theories can only help leaders to communicate effectively to a certain extent. Pure dependency on these theories will not help leaders. Application of the theories together with an ability to listen well will help leaders to become effective communicators. The important point here is that leaders do have to know how to apply the theories in order to be able to use the theories suitably. Randomly applying them without sufficient understanding and knowledge of the situation will only make matters worse. To know how to apply the theories, leaders have to of course, understand the concepts of the theory well. They have to know about the conditions under which it was meant to be used and the kind of phenomenon it is used to explain. Communication researchers usually come up with theories that are specifically used to explain one kind of phenomenon. Hence, leaders may realize that the theory does not seem to be valid for their case. This may be because the properties of the case do not fit the kind of case the theory is used to analyze or the case has many properties; some of which fit the theory while the rest do not. Leaders then need to seek for the most appropriate mix of theories to apply. Situations in reality seldom only have a one-dimensional or two-dimensional view. Treat the whole situation as if it were a three-dimensional object and look at it from all the points of view. This will help leaders to recognize the properties of the situation better and choose a more appropriate match of theories for the situation at hand. It was also the writer 's opinion from the beginning that, leaders should find the theories that most suit their needs. Different leadership roles have different needs of them as communicators and leaders should understand how their communication style can be affected by the type of leadership role they take. This will help them to choose the appropriate theories that they should have more in-depth knowledge about. These would then become the specific theories that leaders should have knowledge about. Other than these specific theories, all leaders should be equipped with a basic set of theories which would help them understand more about conveying their messages effectively and clearly. This basic set of theories has been touched on in the earlier sections and they include: Aristotle 's Rhetoric, Alfred Korzybski 's General Semantics, The Critical Theory of Communication Approach to Organizations by Stanley Deetz, Groupthink by Irving Janis and Genderlect Styles by Deborah Tannen. All these theories were selected to give leaders an all-rounded basic education about communication theories and have a very wide area of application. They are however, not sufficient by themselves and leaders need to apply them two, three maybe all at a time depending on what kind of actions the situation calls for. Therefore, they are not meant to be used by leaders on a singly basis and leaders should know it. Communication theories are also, ultimately theories. They are not laws of truth neither are they some kind of scientific formulas that will help us to predict 100% without fail the results of a situation. Leaders cannot just rely on these theories and hope that everything they anticipate will come true. This is highly unlikely and simply because they are not meant to help leaders to foresee the future results of a chain of events. Communication theories are a guide to how leaders can go about explaining some of the issues regarding communication they see around them and attempt to find a solution to these issues through the knowledge they receive from communication theories. Without such a guide, it becomes impossible for leaders to even understand why some of the things around them happen and if they do not even know the roots of the problems, how then can they go about trying to solve the problems? Thus, leaders need to treat communication theories more like a guide, rather than a Bible for their communication problems. Over-reliance on the theories will only cause adverse effects which are not the intentions of the writer in expounding on the usefulness of communication theories.
Lastly, what are the possible implications in the future for leaders? Communication researchers are still making new discoveries regarding the communication process, much like how scientists find out new things about the world around us everyday. However, studying communication is a long process and researchers have to look at the same situation many, many times and over a long period of a few years to deduce a certain pattern from what they observe. It is thus likely that these communication theories could be revised and updated when researchers find out new things. Leaders thus have to keep periodically updating themselves with these new finds to prevent themselves from believing in theories that may not be valid anymore. With time, the writer believes that communication theories may eventually grow close to becoming laws of truth. However, it is impossible for the theories to be laws of truth because the human mind is something that even scientists have problems deciphering. If human beings were to become such predictable creatures, then the world would be a much simpler place. The truth is our human brain is capable of so much more that we may not be aware of as yet, and communication will never be just a simple process of plotting a graph and finding the point on the chart which corresponds to our situation.

Bibliography
1. A First Look at Communication Theory, Em Griffin, New York Mc-Graw Hill, 2000.
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4. Communication Theories Perspectives, Processes and Contexts, Katherine Miller, McGraw Hill, New York, America, 2005
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Bibliography: 1. A First Look at Communication Theory, Em Griffin, New York Mc-Graw Hill, 2000. 2. Leading Out Loud: Inspiring Change through Authentic Communication, Terry Pearce, San Francisco, Calif: Chichester: Jossey-Bass; John Wiley, 2003. 3. Theories of Human Communication, Stephen W. Littlejohn, Karen A. Foss, Wadsworth, Belmont Canada, 2005 4. Communication Theories Perspectives, Processes and Contexts, Katherine Miller, McGraw Hill, New York, America, 2005 3. Inspiring Leadership: Learning from Great Leaders, John Adair, London Thorogood, 2002. 4. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John C. Maxwell, Zig Ziglar, Nelson Impact, 1998 5. Harvard Business Review on Effective Communication, Boston, Mass, London, Harvard Business School, Mc-Graw Hill, 1999 6. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/CD/CD01300.pdf 7. http://www.wrg.org.uk/prh/leadership_skills.pdf 8. http://onlineethics.org/essays/shuttle/telecon.html