Struggling to Communicate

Regardless of age, race, education, social class, or gender — in some way, communication is possible for everyone.

Why are American's so divided?

Communication should be used to bring people together to promote trust, transparency and positive outcomes. The nation and local leaders are currently cycling the same efforts of poor communication skills addressing issues and challenges troubling and affecting the people.

What is the root cause of poor communication? In an ideal world, every leader should be an effective communicator. It should be a leadership requirement, but oftentimes leaders delegate their communication responsibilities for others to handle.

Communication can cause exposure and and lead to a call for accountability for those with hidden agendas — which compared to the Covid-19 virus is difficult to control.

Leadership does not mean delegating responsibility of being ignorant about issues or challenges and deflecting blame from the messenger such as the individual or group that lacked effective communication efforts to address the public with the true truth.

Communication is only difficult when people are not listening and do not prepare themselves to know what they are talking about because proper research was not conducted or certain questions were not asked.

If communication was so easy, leaders would not be required to attend so many meetings to make a decision or gain clarity and understanding on a particular issue.

Without knowing their reason for speaking some leaders have a tendency to overcompensate by being loud and obnoxious.

They create a lot of noise and say more than what is required to appear important in an effort to hide their lack or limited knowledge about the subject.

Continued on Page 5

‘A Political View’

By Sherry Holliman SHERRY HOLLIMAN (cont.)

What the audience needs to understand is that some leaders are perceived as subject matter experts yet many lack expertise in any particular subject. They may know a little about everything but not a lot about anything.

This is why many leaders have difficulty understanding the consequences of and effectively articulating the requirements to thrive in the changing world.

When leaders lack subject matter expertise they do not know where they or their points of view fit in the solution process.

Because of this accepted behavior the nation will always suffer and always face unnecessary challenges to identify new opportunities and solutions for growth.

Poor communication skills are eventually exposed during a crisis or a meeting.

Many leaders have remained silenced during the pandemic believing that if they addressed the stresses of the unknown factors concerning the deadly virus this will be the start of showing their vulnerability. Many leaders have shared with one another at some point in their leadership position this belief: “I would rather not expose my vulnerability and remain quiet than say something that will expose my lack of knowledge, understanding and self trust.”

Should leaders have this bail out opportunity?

Serious compassionate leaders know that unless others feel comfortable with where they stand, and show how they can best serve the interest of the majority and not themselves or a special interest group their ability to gain trust will be very low. At the end of the day leaders should always be prepared and always held accountable, they should take the time to ask questions because they know they don’t have all the answers.

Sherry Holliman is a concerned citizen of Crittenden County and has some views on a variety of topics that she wants to share with her neighbors. She serves on the Marion City Council.