I often wondered what a typical day was like for the leadership team of the multibillion dollar company American Family Insurance. I got my chance to learn about this while interviewing Chad Cerkoney, the director of risk management. American Family Insurance with its corporate office in Madison, WI. It currently operates in 19 states mainly across the Midwest with insurance products in life, health, business, and personal property. Chad has been working for American Family for over 30 years and has held positions such as Insurance Agent, Workforce Manager, Actuary, and now Risk Management Director. Chas received his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Wisconsin in Business Administration.
Chads typical day with American Family starts out by conducting daily meetings going over reports with staff and preparing for meetings with the leadership team. Some of his duties include analysis and trends of the company’s profits and losses and keeping senior leadership informed of the latest analysis and trends of the company’s profits and losses. Any change in the factors that affect metrics have to be quickly dissected, evaluated, measured and presented so that required actions can be taken. A majority of his time is spent in meetings and keeping the management team motivated and informed of the current strategic goals of the organization.
Two of the most critical managerial problems that Chad faces are lack of communication and disagreements amongst the management team. “I try to keep all lines of communication open at all times and believe, encouraging all of my managers to express their ideas and opinions no matter how small” (C. D. Cerkoney, Personal Communication, February 27, 2012).
Chad explains that three essen...
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...of the everyday challenges that are faced. I now more than ever know that I am taking the correct path into leadership and with each interaction am becoming better prepared to lead my generation into tomorrow, just as Chad has done with his.
References
Clark, D. R. (2004). Leadership and Human Behavior. Retrieved March 2, 2012, from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/questions.html
Kreitner, R. (2008). Foundations of Management. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Toth, M. (2010, April 5). Leadership Through Effective Interpersonal Communication Skills. Retrieved March 1, 2012, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Leadership-¬Through-¬Effective--Interpersonal-¬Communication-¬Skills&id=4052980
Yoskovitz, B. 10 Essential Business Leadership Skills Retrieved March 3, 2012, from http://www.instigatorblog.com/10-essential-business-leadership-skills/2007/04/16/
There are many areas of capabilities and each is geared towards the necessary skills required to be a successful communicator. It is believed that the best way to “assess the effectiveness of a leader is through the perceptions of his/her followers” (Oyinlade, 2006).The categories included on this list are examples of the type of skills required of a good leader. Assessing these abilities help you to understand yourself as well as others. This list indicates the starting and current levels of this particular self-
Leadership is an important attribute in individuals such as managers, academic experts, and researchers. The topic of leadership continues to gain popularity and importance in almost all sectors. The way leaders in managerial positions communicate determines their effectiveness and success in achieving high levels of performance and success in their organizations. There are numerous books that provide an insight into effective leadership and communication. One of such books is by Atwater and Waldman (2012). This paper provides a summary, contextual analysis and critique of the book.
Pierce, Jon L. and John W. Newstrom (2011) 6th edition. Leaders and the Leadership Process.
Being an effective communicator is the key to success for a leader. Communication is defined by the authors in the text Organizations: Behavior, Structure, and Processes as transmitting information and understanding, usi...
Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2010). Leadership: theory, application, skill development (4th ed.). Mason, Ohio: Thomson/South-Western.
Robbins, S. P., Decenzo, D. A., & Coulter. M. (2013). Fundamentals of Management (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
On a daily basis, leaders are expected to communication on both a business and professional level. As stated by Solaja, Idowu, and James (2016) “today’s leaders must acquire effective communication skills for public speaking, listening and critical thinking in order to promotes organizational performance and cordial relationship between the organization and the external public” (p. 100). At the same time, internal communication with upper management, peers, and subordinates require the same level of information exchange.
I chose to interview Regina Geis, who holds the administrative role as acting supervisor for the County Mental Health adult day program, which provides services for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Ms. Geis has held this position for 15 months. This is her first managerial position within a human service agency. Her style of management has changed over this short period of time. She feels that she is now more direct with her direction with staff. She stated, “Maybe now I come across as a little bit cold. But I have learned that I now have to use the least amount of words to get my point across.”
A healthy flow of upward and downward communication ensures that the communications between managers and employees is complete. For example, in 2010, Kroger surveyed over 200 thousand employees in its “Associate First Tracker survey” and found the feedback both invaluable and “humbling.” Kroger then communicates the findings with their employees who participated which will then generate a new dialog in regard to what the next steps should be (Orgel, 2010). The final channel of communication is the use of horizontal communications between coworkers. This can...
Anne M. Lindbergh, an American Author, noted that, “Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after” (Lindbergh, 1955). Average people speak about 13,500 words a day. However, not all of them pertain to meaningful messages. Alternatively, people often forget what they have said throughout each day. If leaders were to converse that much on a regular basis, having a professional skillset of interpersonal communication could certainly aid them with improving their leadership performance.
Myatt, Mike. "10 Communication Secrets of Great Leaders." Forbes Magazine. N.p., 4 Apr. 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.
To inspire and influence others, a leader must possess many skills and abilities. As motivational speaker Peter Northouse, states, “a leader should be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant” (Northouse, 2013) Moving an entire group of individuals toward a singular goal is a considerable undertaking. Without effective communication skills and a clear vision of what needs to be accomplished, one will feel like they are trying to herd cats rather than leading.
Hackman, Michael Z.; Craig E. Johnson (2009). Leadership: A Communication Perspective (Fifth ed.). Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc.
Verderber, S. K., & Verderber, F. R. (1976). Interact; Interpersonal Communication Skills. California: Wadsworth Publishing Co.
...r staff and colleagues and not only give orders. This involves giving feedbacks, constructive and positive. Constructive feedback guides the employee in the right direction or path. Positive feedback praises and encourages the employee when they complete a task well. Above all we have seen the importance of interpersonal communication in the form of one-to-one basis. This serves as a greatest opportunity for an effective two way dialogue or discussion. All these characteristic allow open and free flow communication which results in employee engagement and critical thinking among them. Another important aspect of a good leadership communication is that they think about the message from the team’s perspective. Above all, good listening is a major attribute of good leadership communication. These are some of the important traits of a good leadership communication.