Strategic Leadership Plan for Workplace Communication Skills
This paper presents a personal strategic leadership plan designed to address deficiencies in professional communication among employees who interact with external clients. The plan identifies poor written communication — including unprofessional language, inappropriate slang, abbreviations, and emoticons — as a threat to organizational credibility. It outlines a structured approach involving an initial skills audit, individualized Communications Improvement Plans (CIPs) developed by supervisors in conjunction with Human Resources, and a six-month supervised training period. The paper also addresses organizational integration, accountability structures, and long-term knowledge retention through updated hiring and evaluation policies.
- Background: The Communication Problem: Poor client-facing communication threatens organizational credibility
- Strategic Objectives: Audit employee skills and assign individualized improvement plans
- Methodology and Training Design: Supervisor-led CIPs with HR support and role-play exercises
- Organizational Integration and Accountability: Supervised draft review and monthly HR reporting during training
- Knowledge Retention and Policy Alignment: Embed communication standards in hiring and evaluation policy
- Conclusion: Plan bridges competence gap through structured, lasting reform
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What makes this paper effective
- Opens with a concrete, detailed real-world example — a client requesting reassignment — to ground the abstract problem in organizational reality and establish urgency.
- Maintains a clear logical progression from problem identification through objectives, methodology, accountability, and long-term retention, keeping each section purposeful.
- Balances individual-level interventions (personalized CIPs) with systemic changes (updated evaluation criteria, revised hiring policies), demonstrating awareness of both immediate and structural solutions.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively uses a practitioner-oriented policy document format, grounding strategic recommendations in specific, observable behaviors (e.g., use of emoticons, slang, and colloquialisms in professional emails). This specificity transforms a broad leadership challenge into a measurable, actionable plan — a technique central to applied organizational leadership writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper is organized into six sections: an opening background section establishing the problem through an illustrative example; a strategic objectives section defining the plan's scope; a detailed methodology section describing supervisor-led training; an accountability section covering interim oversight during training; a knowledge retention section addressing long-term policy change; and a brief conclusion tying the plan together. Sources include peer-reviewed leadership scholarship from the Annual Review of Psychology, American Psychologist, and Harvard Business Review.
Background: The Communication Problem
In my current organization, there is a need to improve the communication efficiency of many employees. We have encountered problems stemming from poor communication, especially in written form. Some personnel perform their other job functions well but lack professionalism and precision when it comes to written communication. On several occasions, clients have expressed frustration because they were unable to understand the meaning of emails sent to them in the ordinary course of business.
For example, one client complained and asked to be reassigned to a different account manager because he believed the export manager handling his account was inexperienced. In reality, she has more than a decade of experience and serves as one of our new employee trainers. An internal audit of her communications with clients revealed that the problem was strictly one of poor communication. She routinely uses unprofessional language that gives the impression of incompetence or inexperience. A similar situation occurred with other employees in connection with their use of inappropriate slang, colloquialisms, abbreviations, and even emoticons in professional emails.
Therefore, this leadership plan is intended to address the communication skills and styles of employees so that their communications do not undermine their professionalism in other aspects of their positional responsibilities. The plan consists of specific goals, methods for achieving those goals, steps for their effective implementation, and metrics for evaluation and determination of success.
Sources Consulted
Avolio, B. J., Walumbwa, F. O., and Weber, T. J. "Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions." Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 60 (2009): 421–449.
Bennis, W. "The Challenges of Leadership in the Modern World: Introduction to the Special Issue." American Psychologist, Vol. 62, No. 1 (2007): 2–5.
George, B., Sims, P., McLean, A. N., and Mayer, D. "Discovering Your Authentic Leadership." Harvard Business Review, Vol. 85, No. 2 (2007): 129–138.
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