I work with CEOs to improve the effectiveness and power of their communication. Seldom are the communications deeply honest, straightforward, authentic and impactful. Rarely are communications truthful with a capital T. People are ‘“armed,” and communication through their armament chokes the effectiveness of the communication.
There are unrecognized shields present: the defenses, safeguards, and fortifications held by the person with whom the CEO is speaking. These are shields that deflect and reshape effective communication. Most CEOs don’t know how to recognize these defensive shields, or how to address them to disarm the other person.
Disarmament means the reduction or withdrawal of forces and weapons. People protect themselves when they feel threatened. The CEO, by virtue of their position alone, poses a threat. The CEO has their hands on the future of this individual. The wrong response could cost this individual their job. So, the first step to generate effective communication is for the CEO to remove the perceived threat.
To be a highly successful CEO, the ability to deactivate those shields — removing interferences, and creating a sense of sanctuary — allows unrestricted communication.
The more unrestricted the communication, the more powerful and effective the communication. The less guarded the communication, the more truthful the communication. Once shields are down, communication flows with greater honesty.
CEOs are often afraid to open Pandora’s box. Hence, they avoid asking people how they truly feel or what’s going on with them. And if they do, it is a perfunctory, insincere inquiry. They are only doing it to be good-mannered. They believe that honestly asking about how people feel about themselves, their job, and the company, would get messy or emotional — and those emotions would only get in the way. Furthermore, few CEOs feel they can powerfully deal with these responses, so they avoid them. CEOs are strategists, tacticians, and visionaries, but they are are not people who want to deal with other people’s “stuff.”
The unwritten policies are “leave your life outside the door and be a good soldier here at work. Don’t make waves. Don’t piss off the CEO.” But you can’t leave life outside the door. You can’t perform at your best if you are threatened, upset or distressed. Great CEOs can recognize what is going on with people and address it, and highly successful CEOs can disarm other’s reactive and emotional states. Great CEOs can recognize problems, and do something about them. Successful CEOs can disarm people.
When the CEO avoids having these conversations about what is going on with people, and when people’s feelings and emotions are suppressed and unexpressed, people turn their feeling and emotions into armor, which deflects clear communication and reduces empathy.
The successful CEOs know the more transparent he or she is about what is going on for themselves personally and professionally — the more they are open to revealing and disclosing — the more the person with whom they are communicating will do the same. But to reveal and disclose requires dropping the ego, a depth of self-awareness, a high level of emotional intelligence, and a deep understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
If communication is the key to success, and most of the time people have some form of shield up, what I have found in my 40 years of consulting is that great CEOs know how to disarm people so they can communicate effectively.
— Marc
