“Communication is a vital component linking leadership and trust”

And it’s certainly true of businesses and all employer organisations. These rely on the trust of a whole range of stakeholders, and crucially this includes employees. In the organisational context, leaders have a hugely influential role to play in building, demonstrating and earning trust in the organisations they seek to lead (the verb is important here – they can only truly lead if employees trust them and trust the organisation itself ). The communication choices they make or are advised to make, can help build trust or erode it.

Communication is a vital component linking leadership and trust. This is made clear in a new research report called Leadership, Trust and Communication: Building Trust in Companies Through Effective Leadership Communication. The report demonstrates that a mutually-dependent relationship exists between communication, leadership and trust. It provides powerful arguments and a clear prescription for trust-building communication styles, methods and behaviour, both for the benefit of internal communication practitioners and for the organisational leaders they coach, guide and advise.

IoIC has put a lot of effort into communicating hard data-based insights into the dynamics of internal communication to underpin the art of IC. The trust report is the latest and – to date – most heavyweight example. Put another way, not only can IC practitioners conjure their solutions but increasingly, we can explain it, too.

Actually I’ll retract ‘conjure.’ Effective IC never has been about smoke and mirrors and IC practitioners are sometimes professionally peeved when yet another organisational leader asks them to ‘weave their magic.’ Their best riposte is probably to point their ‘non-comm’ colleagues in the direction of reports such as this. Published this month and showcased at IoIC’s Central conference in Leicester at the end of February, the report brings to fruition a close collaboration between Westminster Business School, leadership communication agency Top Banana and IoIC. Everyone interested in the dynamics of leadership and communication should read it carefully (it’s free to IoIC members; others with a genuine interest in these factors can speak nicely to Top Banana) and I hope that what they learn will provide insights that they can use to build trust in their own organisations.

This is IoIC’s busiest time of year, the peakest of peaks. That’s how it looks from the top of my alp-like in-tray where there’s even snow on the highest items, although that may be the illusory effect of eye-strain (detractors would simply claim that it’s dust). We have our annual audit, our AGM and this year a triennial election to IoIC’s Board of Directors. The IoIC Awards will also be launched by the time you read this. Not least, we’ll be counting down to our flagship event, the annual conference, IoIC Live – the UK’s original and most well-established national conference for IC practitioners. We go out of our way to instil a friendly and inclusive atmosphere. After all, people want to feel welcome and able to talk to strangers when they come to a conference, as well as see good presenters, hear fresh ideas and be challenged in their thinking. This year, IoIC Live returns to Brighton (www.ioic.org.uk for details). It’s London-on-Sea for some and from past experience many London-based IC folk will head down for some fine professional development beside the sea for the day, or even stay for the weekend. May Bank Holiday on the south coast, anyone?