Transforming Communication in Leadership and Teamwork
Person-Centered Innovations

Authors: Renate Motschnig, David Ryback



Smooth integration of business challenges with a person-centered value base

Supports significant learning by complementing knowledge inputs with reflections, practical cases, a test, and incentives for practicing acquired skills

Transparent structure and several pedagogical features aid comprehensibility and aim at the short attention span typical of managers/executives

This accessible, highly interactive book presents a transformative approach to communication in leadership to meet workplace challenges at both local and global levels. Informed by neuroscience, psychology, as well as leadership science, it explains how integrating and properly balancing two key focal points of management—the tasks at hand and the concerns of others and self—can facilitate decision-making, partnering with diverse colleagues, and handling of crises and conflicts. Case examples, a self-test, friendly calls for reflection, and practical exercises provide readers with varied opportunities to assess, support, and evoke their readiness to apply these real-world concepts to their own style and preferences. Together, these chapters demonstrate the best outcomes of collaborative communication: greater effectiveness, deeper empathy with improved emotional fulfillment, and lasting positive change.

Included in the coverage:

• As a manager, can I be human? Using the two-agenda approach for more effective—and humane—management.
• Being and becoming a person-centered leader and manager in a crisis environment.
• Methods for transforming communication: dialogue.
• Open Case: A new setting for problem-solving in teams.
• Integrating the two agendas in agile management.
• Tasks and people: what neuroscience reveals about managing both more effectively.
• Transforming communication in multicultural contexts for better understanding across cultures.

As a skill-building resource, Transforming Communication in Leadership and Teamwork offers particular value:
• to diverse business professionals, including managers, leaders, and team members seeking to become more effective
• business consultants and coaches working with people in executive positions and/or teams
• leaders and members of multi-national teams
• executives, decision makers and organizational developers
• instructors and students of courses on effective communication, social and professional skills, human resources, communication and digital media, leadership, teamwork, and related subjects.

Table of contents (19 chapters)

Front Matter
Pages i-xxv

Leadership, Management, and Communication in a Time of Rapid Change
Front Matter
Pages 1-1
Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities at Work
Pages 3-21
As a Manager—Can I Be Human?—The Two-Agenda Approach
Pages 23-44
On Transformation
Pages 45-55

Case-Studies on Transforming Communication in Management
Front Matter
Pages 57-57
Carl Rogers’ Counseling Center in Chicago—A Case Study
Pages 59-67
Chairing the World Association for Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling
Pages 69-78
Managing Change, Performance Evaluation, and Controlling with Congruence and Integrity
Pages 79-90
How I Changed My Leadership Style from Directive-Confrontational to Open, Appreciative, and Person-Centered
Pages 91-97
Make It Personal: International Futures Forum’s Approach to Community Transformation
Pages 99-106

For the Manager and Team Member
Front Matter
Pages 107-107
The Interpersonal Relationship at Work: The Preconditions of Transformative Communication
Pages 109-137
Methods for Transforming Communication: Dialogue
Pages 139-154
Transforming Communication Through Intensive Group Experience, Communication Workshops, and Open Case
Pages 155-173
Integrating the Two Agendas in Key Situations
Pages 175-198
Integrating the Two Agendas in Agile Management
Pages 199-206
Building and Developing Well-Functioning Teams—The Impact of Transformative Communication
Pages 207-224

What Are the Facts?
Front Matter
Pages 225-225
How Neuroscience Can Help to Understand the Working of Emotions and Empathy in Leadership
Pages 227-247
Tasks and People: What Neuroscience Reveals About Managing Both Effectively
Pages 249-262
Study on Personal Perceptions of Communication in Organizations
Pages 263-270
Transforming Communication in Multicultural Contexts
Pages 271-287

Conclusions
Front Matter
Pages 289-289
The Social and Value Ramification: Well-Functioning Teams, Collaboration, and Co-actualization
Pages 291-299

Back Matter
Pages 301-307