Employees sometimes regard the executives in their firms as unknowable and mysterious. Many staffers even see their top bosses as dangerous – particularly to the unlucky souls who inadvertently run afoul of them. The result is that many workers can’t or don’t try to communicate with their higher-ups. In this helpful text, leadership experts Susan Kushnir and Barbara Sucoff teach employees how to decode executives and deal with them constructively.
Most people don’t understand their higher-ups because they don’t speak “executive.”
Communicating with executives can be a huge challenge for employees. For lower-level staff members, trying to figure out the true meaning of many of the things executives say to one another can seem like the equivalent of interpreting a foreign language. Executives tend to speak a special language designed to exclude those not privy to their intentions or meanings. They use acronyms that don’t signify anything to non-insiders. They talk in hushed tones about unknown special projects or refer to concepts, issues and ideas that rank-and-file employees haven’t encountered.
Lower-level employees and managers may find all this mystery tiresome or even dangerous. And, in many ways, they’re right: The inability to communicate effectively with your company’s executives, particularly your ultimate boss, is a problem. Even executives who aren’t in your direct reporting line may have a negative effect on your projects and your career prospects.
Executives don’t need to...
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