Effective Communication

Communication is the process that people use to exchange messages and share meaning about their ideas and feelings. It is sharing information, ideas, or attitudes in ways that produce a degree of understanding between two or more people. Practically all concepts of communication involve interaction between two or more people. Leaders of educational institutes rely on effective communication to convey messages of importance to subordinates which impact the education of our children. How well the messages are understood determines if the message was properly delivered to the recipient.

The administrator as a communicator needs to communicate with a wide variety of people in a number of different ways about specific situations, problems, or issues. Administrators have to communicate with teachers, other administrators, community leaders, the populous of the community, and the students. To achieve successful communication the administrator should be aware of some basic aspects of communication: what is to be achieved by the message, who the message is directed toward, the content of the message, the need for feedback, and a response to the message. The purpose of the message should be thought through thoroughly by the administrator. He should ask himself what is the intent of the message whether it is to inform, raise questions, motivate, change attitudes, or to clarify. Once the objectives of the message have been clearly established the administrator will have much more success effectively communicating with his intended recipients. Every message has an intended audience. For the message to be clearly and effectively delivered, the intended audience should be identified. The leader must determine if there is any lack of knowledge by the recipients. If their knowledge is lacking, the sender must take this into consideration when delivering the message as far as wording is concerned. For the message to be understood the wording should be on the level of the recipients of the message (Gorton, 1993).

There are three models of communication. These models represent different angles of communicating with individuals. The linear model of communication is basically one-sided communication, from the leader to the follower. This type of communication uses symbols to form messages. Messages come in two forms: verbal and non-verbal. Verbal communication refers to the spoken word. Non-verbal communication consists of cues which supplement verbal communication. These cues can enhance messages. Such non-verbal cues are body posture, smiles, frowns, physical gesture, and a persons’ overall appearance including the types of clothing the person is wearing. All these cues influence the interpretation of the message a leader is sending to a follower. More importantly this type of communication is one way. The message is sent to the recipient from the sender with no return address. With no return address the possibilities of having a conversation and dialogue is diminished. This type of communication is not limited to just the linear model. The interactional model of communication and the transactional model of communication uses verbal and non-verbal messages. One difference between the linear model and the interactional and transactional model is the ability to actually have conversation and dialogue through feedback from the recipient (Hersey, 2001).

There are advantages of this one-way communication model. It emphasizes the skill of the message sender and encourages administrators and teachers to think through their ideas, be specific when giving directions and accurately deliver the messages to their recipients. One-way communication also discourages chatter and discussions of personal matters. In other words it doesn’t allow for wasted time. In the educational setting there is a need for shared ideas and understandings. This communication model could be seen as inadequate, yet it is still used by many (Hoy, 2005).

The interactional model of communication involves feedback from the recipient of messages. Unlike the linear model, the interactional model allows the recipient to give feedback to the sender. In an organizational setting, teachers giving the principal feedback about a new education model that he wants to implement in his school is an example of the Interactional Model. This feedback can be verbal and non-verbal. In the Linear Model only the sender manipulates the messages verbally and with non-verbal cues. In the Interactional