If authority has no ears to listen, it has no head to govern.

Danish proverb

When managers do not listen they cease to be business leaders and revert to their former status as hired business administrators. So-called managers of this low calibre hardly listen at all: they ignore, forget, distort or misunderstand much of what they hear.

With a small group or team, as a leader you can communicate by informal personal contact. But organization implies that you communicate through formal channels, such as a military chain of command. A corollary is that if you work in organizations you have to respect these formal channels.

That doesn’t mean to say that informal communication is totally absent from organizations; that is far from the case. There is plenty of information, discussion, conversation and networking in most organizations. But they should be essentially supplementary. If informal communication dominates it is probably because the formal communication system – the core of the organization – isn’t work­ing well.

In the context of an organization, size and geographical spread always put a strain on its power to communicate effectively. If rapid change is thrown into the equation the situation can be even worse. Conditions of change call for better communication, whereas size, geographical spread and elements of change itself are all working against you, like strong adverse currents.

To overcome potential problems you need a practical philosophy of communication that embraces the content of communication, the directions it must take and your personal responsibility. Prior to that, however, you need to be passionate about good communication.