Topic Option 1: Communication Filters in Strategic Leadership
This topic is concerned with communication filter (CF) types and suggestions to overcome them, including communication frameworks, culture development recommendations, and other approaches. CFs in strategic leadership are multi-dimensional and have inspired practice-oriented communication models. Such filters find reflection in selective perception stemming from differing linguistic experiences, emotions, or individual value profiles (Smrek, 2021). At the language level, the existing filters include stylistic, logical, and semantic ones (Demchenko et al., 2021).
The CF concept has inspired comprehensive high-impact communication models for leaders to pursue. Specifically, the six-step framework proposed by Abirami et al. (2019) posits that staying aware of one’s inherent filters, acknowledging the audience ones in formulating the message, and deciding on the delivery mode is central to effective information exchange and human relations in organizational contexts. Investigating the currently known approaches to minimizing filters’ harmful implications for corporate effectiveness can provide future leaders with valuable message formulation insights to implement.
Another point of interest is the connection between CF and the strategic leader’s culture establishment efforts to promote optimal performance and interoperability. Information filtering can occur unintentionally, including less competent employees’ inability to comprehend the received messages and report them without distortions (Smrek, 2021). Sometimes, the fear of speaking out creates excessive filtering, resulting in flawed intra-organizational information exchange endeavors (Smrek, 2021). It encourages the strategic leader to foster a culture of openness and transparency.
Topic Option 2: Using Enterprise Social Networks/Media for Employee Engagement
Enterprise social networks (ESN) or social media (ESM) and their effective instrumentalization present an interesting topic at the intersection of leadership, human communication, and IT. In ESN implementation, knowledge generation and transformation must be pursued to create engagement and innovation (Zhaoyuan et al., 2020). Current research, aside from stating ESNs’ engagement-related potential, positions the incomplete understanding of such systems as communication barriers (Kalra & Baral, 2019). Specifically, having researched ESN users’ perspectives on such systems’ utilitarian and hedonic applications, Kalra and Baral (2019) recommend that both productivity-enhancing and pleasure-inducing information should be communicated through such networks.
Another aspect of the topic is the leader’s need to organize ESN communication in accordance with the group’s characteristics. In quasi-experimental research, it has been shown that idea generation in ESM occurs when the ESM’s structure matches the group’s degree of closedness (Van Osch & Bulgurcu, 2020). Qualitative interview-based research also indicates that ESNs’ success depends on the creation of learning-inducing artifacts and internal communication-based opportunities to support employees in adapting to ESNs (Ghanizadeh et al., 2022). Exploring these and other aspects of the topic offers valuable lessons for leaders in the digitalization era.
Topic Option 3: Developing Leadership Self-Efficacy
Leadership self-efficacy (LSE), or a person’s belief in his/her adequate capacity to achieve organizational goals as a leader and approaches to increasing LSE, represent another suggestion for a final paper. There are various subtopics to explore; to start with, high LSE has been connected to particular Big Five personality trait profiles, implying the need for personality alteration efforts and forming new habits (Dwyer, 2019). Another theme relates to the contributions of learning to forming and maintaining LSE; along with Bandura’s theory of social learning, self-efficacy stems from social learning (Nag et al., 2020).
In leadership contexts, social learning might take the form of environmental scanning or active engagement in external data collection and analysis, and environmental scanning is positively correlated with LSE, making it a recommended practice (Nag et al., 2020). The leader’s ego defensiveness or self-centered communication and aversion to employee voice also predict lower LSE levels, suggesting that the correction of such behaviors can be instrumental in achieving healthier self-esteem as a leader (Kuvaas & Buch, 2020). Exploring these and other research-informed suggestions for developing LSE could offer a range of ideas for professional and personal growth.
References
Abirami, S., Noora, A., & Afnan, A. (2019). An effective communication model for effectual leadership in educational institutions in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Journal of Business and Management Studies, 4(12), 907-911. Web.
Demchenko, V., Khoroshevskaya, J., & Krukov, K. (2021). Communication barriers of a construction company’s network management. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 1079(3), 1-5. Web.
Dwyer, L. P. (2019). Leadership self-efficacy: Review and leader development implications. Journal of Management Development, 38(8), 637-650. Web.
Ghanizadeh, D., Choudrie, J., & Sundaram, D. (2022). Understanding and exploring employees’ use of an enterprise social network within a large retail organisation. In T. X. Bui (Ed.), Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii international conference on system sciences (pp. 5027-5036). HICSS.
Kalra, A., & Baral, R. (2019). Enterprise social network (ESN) systems and knowledge sharing: What makes it work for users? VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems, 50(2), 305-327. Web.
Kuvaas, B., & Buch, R. (2020). Leader self-efficacy and role ambiguity and follower leader-member exchange. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 41(1), 118-132. Web.
Nag, R., Neville, F., & Dimotakis, N. (2020). CEO scanning behaviors, self-efficacy, and SME innovation and performance: An examination within a declining industry. Journal of Small Business Management, 58(1), 164-199. Web.
Smrek, L. (2021). Barriers to internal communication in companies. Ekonomika a Spoločnosť, 22(1), 42-54. Web.
Van Osch, W., & Bulgurcu, B. (2020). Idea generation in enterprise social media: Open versus closed groups and their network structures. Journal of Management Information Systems, 37(4), 904-932. Web.
Zhaoyuan, Y., Xiaowei, J., & Haiqing, Y. (2020). A study of the internal influence mechanism of enterprise social network on innovation performance by opening the black box of knowledge management capacity. Science Research Management, 41(12), 149-159. Web.