The role of leadership communication in achievement of strategic alignment within a selected national government department Western Cape, South Africa

Abstract

Communication is regarded, by most, to be a natural human interaction that takes place continuously among people within a department. Very often, managers find it hard to communicate effectively with their employees. Managers, therefore, find it difficult to ensure that their staff know the strategic goals and path of the department. At the same time, they are unable to effectively communicate the challenges and risks the department faces on its strategic journey to their employees. The purpose of this academic research was to investigate barriers in leadership communication as inhibitors of strategic alignment using a selected local office of a South African national government department as a case study. The research addresses the following questions: • Which common barricades (like language) to effective communication persist in a workplace? • What are the reasons for poor communication between managers and staff? • What could be done to address poor communication in order for a department to deliver benefits? A review of the literature included various books, as well as policy documents from relevant government departments. The research questions for this study were best addressed by adopting a qualitative research methodology approach. A questionnaire survey was used for data collection from the eight research participants, namely two senior managers, three middle managers and three junior managers from a selected local office of a national department of government in the Western Cape. For the data analysis, the researcher made use of content analysis. The research determined that, due to defensiveness, people fear communicating freely. Because of this, communication fails within the department. Employees’ lack of self-esteem or confidence hampers communication and productivity in the department. Another challenge that the institution is faced with is different cultural backgrounds. This may cause complications. For example, a person would speak in their mother tongue when angry so that another person does not understand. Because of poor communication, managers find it tough to flexibly communicate with their employees about problems they are facing and ideas are not expressed clearly at all. The study recommends a number of strategies for strengthening communication, for example, stepping back and removing oneself from the situation totally, using different languages to accommodate employees, avoiding communication barriers and managers having an open-door policy that allows workers to resolve their issues by speaking directly with managers.