Leadership is a responsible position. Among other responsibilities, they must be accessible through at least one communication channel to those from their constituencies who may need them.
Amazon chief Jeff Bezos has made his email address globally known. If you write to him, you will certainly get a reply. I have got it twice. Of course, there appears to be a team attending to his emails and responding as per the issue’s significance, but the important point is that he is accessible.
Today, it is possible to be accessible through various communication channels. Whichever channel you choose, you must be reachable by all the stakeholders to whom you have made your contact details known. You must respond to every message received through that channel.
So, if you prefer communication through mobile phone, you must respond to all the calls received on your number. You may avoid responding to calls from unknown numbers because there are a lot of spam calls these days and it is practically impossible for any reasonably busy person to respond to all of them. Also, you may not be able to pick up all the calls from the known numbers when they arrive, but you must reply to them on the same day later when time permits. If replying on the same day is not possible, you must inform them through a small text message when you will call them and then follow up with a call when you can. Alternatively, you can get your team to respond on your behalf in the meantime. But no calls from the known numbers must go unanswered.
The same applies to messages received through SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram, Email or any other medium you have made yourself accessible.
I work with some very successful business leaders who respond to all the calls or WhatsApp messages received from all the known numbers on the same day if not at the same moment. Anyone from their teams or customers can be sure of receiving a revert from them on the same day. That is a formidable reputation. Because of their this habit, people know that they can get their message across and things can be moved forward. Without such an assurance of communication from the leader, things may linger which may result in operational issues.
A leader is at the centre of all business execution. If s/he is not accessible, it affects the whole execution apparatus. The leader must be disciplined and take responsibility for communication. For a business to succeed, such communication discipline is a must.
-Sanjay Shah
SME Business Coach
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