Personal Application Assignment – Framing in Leadership

Despite the many meanings and interpretations that framing may have, especially in leadership, it remains one of leadership's most overlooked attributes, primarily leadership communication. While framing plays a critical foundational environmental and structural role in leadership, many leaders still go without identifying the concept. More so, various challenges occur in framing, leading to its improper use in leadership, which causes the wrong advancement of whole organizations. Where framing is foundational to each leader and organizational communication, all stakeholders need to understand framing and its concepts and application. In this case, according to most literature, framing in leadership can be generically termed as the strategic leaders' response and procedure from evaluating and interpreting particular events, goals, and situations in the organization to influence workers and subordinates toward the particular goal and organization's purpose even in daily tasks. Thus, this paper looks to determine the application of framing in its various dynamics and challenges in an organization during the COVID 19 lockdown measures, where most organizations saw a transition of their workers from the office to work at home. Therefore, an experiential application of the framing of leadership communication theory is critical to determining how to navigate the fundamental concept in real-world organizational situations.  

Organizational Background and Needs. 

In this case, to adjust to the post-COVID-19 pandemic lockdown guidelines, organizational leadership has to ensure a smooth transitioning of the workforce while still ensuring the same level of productivity and commitment to the organizational vision when working remotely instead of working in the office. After the global organizational restrictions, employers and leaders have the responsibility of reimagining new ways and models of working and integrating their workforce to ensure productivity and satisfaction for their employees both during the pandemic while working at home and post-COVID 19 after the subsidization of organizational restrictions such as remote working policies (Liu et al., 2021). Therefore, through the framing model of organizational leadership and communication, the leadership must urge the workforce to remain vigilant and committed to pursuing the organization's long-term and short-term goals even while working remotely, with limited supervision compared to working in the office. More so, the leadership must diagnose possible problems in the situation while fully analyzing it and encourage the organization's community with well-framed communication while avoiding possible wrong cultures that may grow with improper framing. Also, the situation will need a higher level of communication, even through virtual means, due to the lack of contact and physical reach with employees. Thus, leaders in the situation are tasked to ensure continual productivity and advancement of organizational goals while avoiding any possible mishaps. 

Framing Theory

Framing Meaning

First, to properly apply framing to the described situation, the concept should be described, defined, and identified in an organizational setting. Fairhurst (2010) describes framing as one of the most overlooked basic and foundational principles of leadership, and primarily leadership communication, by describing the lack of identification of what water is and its significance for fish which have barely aged while living and swimming in the sea of massive amounts of water. However, more experienced fish identify the value of significance of water, as is the case of communication and framing in communication, and can better apply themselves to it. Thus, since communication is not just a tool but a foundational basis for leadership, leaders can frame communication to determine the course of the whole organization, especially in pursuing their goals. Framing can set the tone, attitude, and behavior of an organization's environment to suit leaders' intentions and goals through the leadership's communication which is framed correctly in response to a certain situation and in an ethical manner. More so, Fairhurst (2010) defines framing according to its three main categories, which include the leader's and organization's cultural elements that determine the context of the communication, the mental frameworks which determine how a leader packages content, and the core framing tools which describe the core communication elements for proper framing. These core framing tools depend on the type of leadership executed by each leader according to their personalities and organizational needs (Indeed Editorial Team, 2018). Major core elements include goal determination, inspiration, optimism and enthusiasm, organization identity creation, and trust creation. Therefore, the framing concept explains the fundamental leadership tool to structure an organization by leaders' communication. 

Application of Framing

In applying the leadership communication framing concept to the particular situation of communicating to a remotely-working team, the content, major framing tools, and framing aesthetics must be determined before communication, if the proper environment must be set. Framing communication can also be described in three major parts: the situation diagnosis and explanation, goals determination, and motivation or inspiration (Mitchell, 2020). This framing format is key in this application, especially since the lack of contact and remote leadership should emphasize transparency, consistency, and inspiration in leadership communication. In this case, the message's content and cultural significance must ensure enthusiasm and commitment to the work even while working at home despite limited supervision. Furthermore, framing communication is necessary to identify the problem that the pandemic has brought on and illustrate the solution while ensuring more repetition of the solution and not the diagnosis. Thus, having determined the content, the major tool necessary for framing communication, in this case, is building a visionary mindset and creating inspiration from it, especially to ensure that employees have a high level of self-drive towards attaining the goals. Hence, in this case, the leadership type will be more visionary, motivational, autocratic, and supportive (Indeed Editorial Team, 2018). More so, the framing aesthetic in this scenario will rely greatly on appealing to employee emotions through feeling statements and repetitions directed to the ability of the team to achieve its goals despite the global setback. However, ethical communication should be made to ensure proper management of emotions and consideration of the workforce in adapting to the new working environment. Therefore, having determined the framing content in illustrating the solution to the situation and the optimistic capability of the organization to achieve the solution and its goals, the major framing tools will be building inspiration and goals communication for the workforce. 

Additionally, the leadership must consider possible forms of challenges that they may encounter in framing communication. In this instance, misinformation and malinformation include one of the major challenges faced in the wake of the pandemic and its corresponding guidelines and restrictions, both publicly and organizationally (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2020). Where misinformation describes sharing false information, malinformation describes sharing truthful information only in a manner that causes harm and fear for those with whom the information is shared. Therefore, one of the major challenges faced in this scenario is the high risk of negative framing, which conditions the workforce to fear and lack inspiration if the communication content is not framed correctly. Thus, although communication may have to be transparent enough to the workforce to describe the situation and the hardships the organization is facing, more emphasis should be given to the problem's solution and not the problem to avoid wrong framing. Also, a major solution to ensure proper framing, especially in dealing with remote workers, includes continuous, persistent, and repetitive communication through various digital forms such as electronic mail, virtual team meetings, and digital calls. Repetitive communications ensure less room for malinformation and misinformation, which cause harm (Shockley et al., 2021). Therefore, despite the high risk of improper use of framing, solutions such as repetition and heavier inspiration exist. 

Conclusion

Hence, through applying the framing concept to a concrete, real-life experience of communicating during and after the covid-19 pandemic and its corresponding and limiting regulations, framing can be conditioned to suit a leader's needs in setting up an environment for positive change. Where framing describes the strategic response towards a particular situation by a leader to ensure continuous advancement towards the organizational goal, this application sees that despite limited supervision, the management of team performance and goal pursuit is still possible despite challenges and the lack of contact with employees. In this scenario, one of the major framing tools includes reliance on emotional intelligence to inspire and motivate the workforce to achieve its goals despite the pandemic's limitations. An optimistic message is critical to influencing an optimistic culture in the organization. Although framing may be wrongly used in transparent communication, a stronger emphasis on the solution and motivation should be taken to ensure positive framing of the organization. Thus, despite the recent global challenges and a change in workforce structures, framing proves an essential and non-negotiable concept in managing employees. 

References

Fairhurst, G. T. (2010). The power of framing: Creating the language of leadership. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN-13: 978-0470494523

Indeed Editorial Team. (2018). 10 Common leadership styles (Plus how to find your own). Indeed Editorial Team.

Liu, J., Eddy, P., William, & Mary. (2021). Framing leadership in times of crisis. SAGE 2YC. From https://serc.carleton.edu/sage2yc/frame_lead.html.

Mitchell, R. (2020). Visionary leadership, identity & motivation: Become a meaning maker. Coursera. From https://www.coursera.org/lecture/visionary-leadership-meaning-maker/framing-B6mCQ.

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2020). Transparency, communication, and trust: The role of public communication in responding to the wave of disinformation about the new Coronavirus. OECD Publishing. From https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/transparency-communication-and-trust-the-role-of-public-communication-in-responding-to-the-wave-of-disinformation-about-the-new-coronavirus-bef7ad6e/

Shockley, K. M., Allen, T. D., Dodd, H., & Waiwood, A. M. (2021). Remote worker communication during COVID-19: The role of quantity, quality, and supervisor expectation-setting. Journal of applied psychology, 106(10), 1466. From DOI: 10.1037/apl0000970