Enhancing entrepreneurial leadership: a focus on key communication priorities.

Darling, John R. ; Beebe, Steven A.

Introduction

An entrepreneur is an innovator who recognizes and seizes opportunities; converts those opportunities into workable and marketable ideas; adds value through time, effort, money, skills and other resources; assumes the risks of the competitive marketplace to implement those ideas; and realizes the rewards from those efforts (Kuratko and Hodgetts, 2004). In fulfilling this process, entrepreneurs function within an operational paradigm of three dimensions--innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness (Morris, Schindehutte and LaForge, 2004). Innovativeness focuses on the search for creative and meaningful solutions to individual and operational problems and needs. Risk-taking involves the willingness to commit resources to opportunities that can have at least a possibility of failure. Proactiveness is concern with implementation and planning to make events happen through appropriate means, which typically include the efforts of a team of other participants. This tri-fold perspective of being innovative, taking risks, and being proactive takes into account the entrepreneur, the individuals with whom he/she is directly involved, and the broader community of stakeholders within which the entrepreneur is embedded (Stevenson, 2004). An individual identifies an opportunity to be pursued and, as an entrepreneur, is typically surrounded with individuals to help create success, and then provides the management leadership necessary to develop those individuals.

The practice of successful entrepreneurship is consequently fulfilled within an array of activities and new creative developments--full of innovations and evolving concepts, constantly changing, and in many cases eluding classification. The transactive and relational nature of these interpersonal activities means that any organizational framework created for them must allow for, and nurture, constant change and, in many cases, the inevitable conflict-management issues that evolve (Welsh and Maltarich, 2004).

Entrepreneurship is essentially about breaking new ground, going beyond the known, and creating a new future within an organizational setting. It is also about leading and thereby helping associates create new opportunities that give them hope for the future (McLagan and Nel, 1995). What makes a truly successful entrepreneur is not intelligence, education, lifestyle, or background. The principal factors that seem to determine success are an entrepreneur's leadership ability to effectively manage the dynamics of an organizational setting, communicate skillfully, and enable associates to be enthusiastically engaged and successful. Those who strive to establish a setting that is supportive of operational team members and their development also help to instill within those individuals a loyalty that will serve to enhance continued achievement and opportunity fulfillment.

The Importance of Effective Communication

Entrepreneurship is fundamentally a way of thinking and communicating that bridges innovative discoveries with opportunity fulfillment. But for the vast majority of entrepreneurs, such innovative thinking cannot be done in isolation from others. Therefore, a key to bridging innovation and opportunity is found in the team of associates brought together to assist the entrepreneurial leader. At the heart of this bridging activity is effective and appropriate communication.

Communicating with others is an essential element in what entrepreneurial leaders do. Regardless of a leader's precise job description, most of a leader's time is spent planning communication messages, actively expressing ideas, or listening and responding to others (Barker, 1981; Klemmer and Snyder, 1972; Nellermoe, Weirich and Reinstein, 1999; Windsor, Curtis and Stephens, 1997). Successful leadership is based on effective communication. Communication is the process of making sense out of the world and sharing that sense with others by co-creating meaning through the use of verbal and nonverbal symbols (Beebe, Beebe and Ivy, 2007). Entrepreneurial leaders facilitate sense-making through symbol use and interpretation. Based upon the organizational theories of Karl Weick (1995), it can be argued that a leader's primary tool for facilitating organizational sense-making is through communication. Wheatley (1992) further suggests that the essence of leading and organizing involves the importance of relationship building, participative decision-making, managing change, and being open to information. Specifically, Wheatley (1992) suggests that leaders should "open the gates to more information, in more places, and to seek out information that is ambiguous, complex, and of no immediate value" in order to eliminate it from the spectrum of organizational communication models. Her call to be an innovative entrepreneurial leader through enhancing communication, points to the core value of communication as the lifeblood of a healthy organization.

The inherent value of communication as a key function of leadership is more than theoretical. Effective communication skills are among the most coveted skills in any organization (Maes, Weldy and Icenogle, 1997; Reinsch and Shelby, 1997). Yet there is evidence that both leaders and workers aren't as skilled in communication behaviors as they should be (Cronin, 1993). Among the greatest need for both leaders and workers, according to a survey of corporate training program directors, is the ability to communicate effectively with others (Brown, 1994; Windsor, Curtis and Stephens, 1997).

Research suggests that 90% of a leader's day is spent communicating with others (Barker, 1981; Klemmner and Snyder, 1972; Nellermoe, Weirich, and Reinstein, 1999); the question remains, given the volume of information to manage, what are the most important priorities for entrepreneurial leadership communication? In this article, a new paradigm of seven primary communication priorities is presented as a foundation for appreciably impacting the enhancement of the entrepreneurial leadership role. These priorities are based on a review of the literature, focusing on entrepreneurs who have achieved remarkable success within their organizations, and a focus on the communication priorities they consider to be of major importance in enabling them to achieve success. Data were collected from well-known successful entrepreneurial leaders of major organizations identified during the past ten years in various publications, such as Business Week, The Economist, Entrepreneur, Financial Times, Fortune, Herald Tribune, New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. To further validate the conclusions, the best practices identified are supported by both classic and contemporary communication research.

A mechanistic, deterministic and reductionistic perspective has often limited the traditional beliefs about entrepreneurial leadership communication. However, contemporary thought necessitates an awareness of a new paradigm of communication priorities--priorities that are more appropriate for meeting the complexities of the contemporary era of technology-infused mediated communication--priorities that will enable entrepreneurial teams to function more effectively in the world of the 21st century. Today, new expansive communication perspectives must be developed to nurture and develop the associates in their organizations--orientations that are congruent with the perspective of the entrepreneurial team as a human-based system that is, in many ways, a somewhat unpredictable, interactive, living system, rather than stable, machine-like operation (Weick, 1995). Since planning, organizing, directing and controlling are derivatives of classical management thought, this new paradigm of communication priorities provides meaningful insights into an organizational world that is objective and subjective, logical and irrational, linear and nonlinear, and orderly and chaotic. In short, this paradigm of communication priorities challenges entrepreneurs to turn their view of reality upside down and inside out, and acknowledge that there is much more to their effective leadership than has been considered in the past paradigms of organizational communication (Shelton and Darling, 2001).

Paradigm of Key Communication Priorities

A communication priority is the purposeful, intentional focus on specific behaviors that result in co-created meaning. Communication priorities may be primarily intrapersonal (within ones self), interpersonal (one-on-one), public (one to many), or mediated (via a channel such as the Internet or broadcast signals). Contemporary communication occurs in many forms and contexts. Across all organizational communication contexts, there are seven priorities of major importance to the organizational leadership role of the entrepreneur: intrapersonal communication priorities (1-3), those that are external to an individual (4-6), and one (7) that is transactive. See Figure 1.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

(1) Paradoxical Thinking: Nurtures understanding based upon use of both hemispheres of the brain;

(2) Controlled Reflecting: Fosters reactions based upon internal self-talk rather than external events;

(3) Intentional Focusing: Facilitates the ability to be centred on expected outcomes;

(4) Instinctive Responding: Cultivates the ability to recognize and use intuitive impulses;

(5) Inclusive Behaving: Nurtures actions based upon a concern for the whole;

(6) Purposeful Trusting: Places confidence in events and processes that accompany change; and

(7) Relational Being: Fosters strength from maintaining positive interactions with others.

The communication priorities paradigm shown in Figure 1 reflects the interrelationships among these elements. The three priorities represented in the upright triangle--Paradoxical Thinking, Controlled Reflecting and Intentional Focusing--are primarily internally oriented. They are premised on three widely accepted principles: (1) Creative thinking and communicating requires development of the right as well as the left hemisphere of the brain; (2) Human feelings are not the result of external events but of one's reaction to those events; and (3) Outcomes of human activities are primarily the result of expectations.

In order to give entrepreneurs and their operational teams a deeper sense of meaning and fulfillment, an externally-oriented dimension to the communication priorities paradigm is also needed--priorities that shift the focus from internal self-interest and ego-involvement to concern for the good of the whole. These three priorities are represented in the inverted triangle in Figure 1--Instinctive Responding, Inclusive Behaving and Purposeful Trusting. They are grounded in three universal principles: (1) Humankind exists in an intelligent universe; (2) Everything in this universe is interrelated; and (3) The universe uses change and chaos to create order. The seventh priority, Relational Being, is intricately connected to each of the other communication priorities, and is thereby appropriately positioned at the central point of the paradigm, the very important focal point in the overall paradigm of key entrepreneurial communication priorities (Figure 1).

These seven communication priorities are ancient and futuristic, simple and difficult, scientific and nonscientific, common and uncommon, and obvious and not quite so obvious. Although these communication priorities help entrepreneurs enhance their communication effectiveness in the modern age, they have their roots in the wisdom of ages past; their precepts can be found in writings of scholars in virtually every generation. Many of civilization's ancient religious and non-religious practices, as well as many contemporary state-of-the-art theories, are based on concepts that are similar to principles from which these priorities were derived. These time-honored principles thus become the important focus as well as major foundation upon which the Paradigm of Key Entrepreneurial Communication Priorities is based--thus serving as a foundation to enhancement of the entrepreneur's leadership role within an organization.

Jack Welch, who led General Electric for twenty years, imbued his innovative and creative multinational organization with an energy and culture that focused on these seven communication priorities. This focus thereby brought him recognition as an entrepreneurial leader in the evolution of what became known as the deepest array of executive talent in the world of international and global business. Through his own dynamic interactive personality, use of memorable slogans, focus on the nurturing of personal development, and a rigorous performance system that required every managerial leader to become a mentor, Welch turned a seemingly disparate conglomerate into a global teaching and development organization. He understood the premise that great entrepreneurial management leadership and communication effectiveness were at least as important as great innovative products (Brady, 2004). In his book, Winning, Welch makes extensive references to the priority of entrepreneurial communication when managing and leading people (Welch, 2005). Whether it is during routine contact with customers, leading during a crisis, or in articulating the mission and values of an organization, the overall priority of communication, according to Welch, is integral to the mission of an entrepreneurial leader in today's world of enterprise.

Paradoxical Thinking

The greatest freedom resident within humankind is that of the freedom to choose. For example, when a society wishes to punish an individual for behavior that is contrary to accepted behavioral and/or operational norms, the society restricts that person's choices by means of such actions as imprisonment, or activity or privilege restrictions. And the most important choice that an individual makes is the decision of what he/she thinks about--a focus of behavior and communication. Stated more precisely, the precursor to every action is considered by many to be a thought (Dyer, 2004). Therefore, any one individual is a culmination about which has been, is being, and perhaps even planning to be thought. Thoughts are consequently important to the success of an entrepreneur and to successful team leadership within an organizational context. In this regard, the pattern of one's thoughts, based upon a nurturing of whole-brain thinking, is therefore an important perspective for effective entrepreneurial leadership and communication.

Unfortunately, within their organizations many entrepreneurs still rely on logical, linear, plus-or-minus thinking skills. However, there are notable exceptions. Jack Stack, president of the well-known Springfield Remanufacturing Company in Illinois, is a paradoxical entrepreneurial thinker and communicator of the first order. He inspires his team members to rise above simplistic binary, either-or solutions, and create highly innovative solutions to difficult organizational challenges. On one occasion, company operations were shut down when truckers went on strike and no steel was being delivered to the company's plant in Chicago. Stack called his key leadership team together and asked them if they had any ideas about how they could get steel into the plant without being stopped by the strikers. Someone suggested the use of school buses, and another suggested catholic nuns' habits for the drivers. The problem was solved! School buses driven by "nuns" brought the badly needed materials to the plant. Stack has commented: "We are always thinking about and doing crazy things like that to keep the lines running ... We come up with the most outrageous ideas you have ever heard of, and they usually work" (Stack, 1992).

If entrepreneurs and their team members are to think "outside the box," it is apparent that logical, rational, binary thought processes are inadequate in many cases (Nussbaum, 2005). For example, how can they balance the responsibility that they have to stockholders with the responsibilities that they have to other stakeholders, such as employees, customers, government and the general society? The ability to think paradoxically, and communicate accordingly, will no doubt be a key to creating highly innovative solutions to questions like this and addressing a myriad of other organizational challenges in the future.

Paradoxical Thinking has its roots in dialectical theory--a paradigm that looks at the human condition in terms of sets of opposing forces. Anchored in the work of Russian linguist Mikhail Bakhtin and further developed by Baxter (1988), dialectical theory poses that communication occurs in the ubiquitous context of dialectical tensions. Three primary dialectical tensions that undergird Paradoxical Thinking are: (1) connected versus autonomous, (2) certainty versus uncertainty, and (3) openness versus closedness (Baxter and Montgomery, 1996). A skilled entrepreneurial communicator who thinks paradoxically is aware of the ever-present dialectical tensions that exist in all communication and seeks to reconcile these forces. Embedded within these dialectical tensions is the inherent left-brain/right brain interaction. To think paradoxically and comprehensively, entrepreneurs must develop, within themselves and others, the capacities of the right hemisphere of the brain--the side of the brain that thinks in images and pictures, not words, and is, therefore, not bound by verbal language and logic.

The right-brain can gather up seemingly unrelated ideas and arrange them into highly creative idea constellations, thus bypassing the left-brain's propensity for binary logical thinking. The right-brain has another important creative advantage for entrepreneurial leaders. It can process literally millions of visual images in microseconds, and solve problems exponentially faster than the clock-bound left hemisphere. Each time an entrepreneur makes the choice to visualize versus think in words, a disconnect occurs from the linear passage of thoughts. Therefore, through the process of imagistic thinking he/she can escape the tyranny of time and enter a realm where seemingly opposing options can effortlessly superimpose themselves into highly creative solutions. A priority of Paradoxical Thinking provides an ongoing stream of highly innovative, often illogical ideas that help transcend the "box" of binary thinking, and facilitate creative communication. The ability of an entrepreneurial team and organization to survive, and perhaps even thrive, demands that this priority be recognized and developed. And, as noted above, this priority is a key to enhancing effective organizational leadership and communication to help manage the dialectical tensions that are present in any relationship within the organizational setting.

Controlled Reflecting

Controlled Reflecting is the ability to sift from among the available information and experiences positive, supportive and optimistic options that can enhance the goal-achievement of the organization. The underlying premise of Controlled Reflecting is that the individual is in control of how he/she responds to the information and environment. Humans have a choice about how they make sense out of the world. As articulated by Glasser (1998), "The only person whose behavior we can control is our own.... All we can give or get from other people is information. How we deal with that information is our choice." This entrepreneurial leadership communication priority is based on the premise that human beings are composed of a similar energy matter as the rest of the universe and are, therefore, subject to universal laws of energy excitation. The human heart is the source of power for the mind-body system, and thereby generates the strongest electromagnetic signal in the human body--and the power of that signal is primarily a function of thoughts and emotions (Institute of HeartMath, 1993). Positive emotions (e.g., love, caring, compassion, hope, joy, peace and appreciation) serve to increase an individual's coherence, thus increasing energy. Negative emotions (e.g., frustration, fear, anger, conflict and stress) act on an individual in such a manner as to decrease coherence in the heart's electromagnetic waves, causing the mind-body system to lose energy (see Hawkins, 1998).

These observations confirm what many individuals already know instinctively. Positive emotions energize and negative emotions exhaust. Knowing this to be true does not, however, solve the pervasive epidemic of stress, conflict and burnout that is common throughout the entrepreneurial world of today (Nurmi and Darling, 1997). Fast-paced schedules drain one's energy. Stress-filled jobs exhaust people. Interpersonal differences create conflict. Individuals desire health and vitality, but too often experience tiredness and disease. The communication priority of Controlled Reflecting enables entrepreneurs and members of their team to feel good internally, regardless of what happens externally. In essence, the use of this priority becomes the internal check-point; that is, happiness comes to the entrepreneur and his/her operational team members because of what's inside, not outside (Hawkins, 1998). As this communication priority is recognized and implemented, team members learn how to change the energy triggers of the body by changing the feelings of the heart (Dyer, 1998). They thereby become increasingly aware of the perceptual choice point between an external stimulus and a subsequent internal response; and begin to recognize that one's energy is never depleted by other people or events, but rather by one's perceptual choices and reactions thereto. In addition, it is not the events that occur in the life of an organization, but what the entrepreneur and his/her operational team do about the events (the self-talk reflective responses) that make the difference based upon the values and perspectives existing within the individuals involved.

An entrepreneurial leader and his/her team can therefore maintain higher levels of energy and vitality simply by choosing to discipline reflections and focus on the positive aspects of experiences (Childre, 1996). Focusing on the positive aspects, the heart's electromagnetic waves become coherent and the brain's waves spontaneously follow (physicists refer to this as entrainment). From this more coherent state of mind, one sees opportunities that would have been missed had the individual remained in a state of negativity. The opportunities could have been there all along, however, but the person's emotionally-induced cognitive incoherence simply made them perceptually unavailable. Herb Kelleher, well-known CEO, entrepreneur and team-developer at Southwest Airlines, was a controlled reflector and effective managerial communicator of the first order. In an industry plagued with passenger discontent and labor troubles, Southwest Airlines turned a profit every year during his tenure. It also has never laid off anyone and, under Kelleher's leadership, became an icon of offbeat customer service. For example, its flight attendants have sometimes communicated the flight safety instructions by singing. Nurturing the entrepreneurial "Southwest Spirit" was a key to Kelleher's implementation of Controlled Reflecting (Business Week, 2001). Gary Kelly, appointed CEO of Southwest Airlines in mid-2004, reflects a similar orientation to this important communication priority (Zellner, 2005).

The priority of Controlled Reflecting enables entrepreneurs to change the constructs of their minds and the minds of their team members. This skill has an enormous impact on issues such as motivation, burnout, stress and job satisfaction. Life within an entrepreneurially-led organization will change significantly when individuals, and particularly those in leadership roles, release their collective dependence on external cues and take full personal responsibility for bringing purpose, passion, direction and vitality to their organization by means of the discipline and internal mental control of their reflections of the external events that occur and their response to those events.

Intentional Focusing

Intentional Focusing is the ability to be self-aware of communication with oneself and others. Effective communicators are consciously and mindfully "present" when communicating with others; further, they use their focused, mindful communication habits to expect positive communication outcomes. This communication priority is based on the premise that entrepreneurs and members of their operational teams must avoid the tendency to function and make decisions within the context of a subjective organizational environment. Research in human perception suggests that over eighty percent of what is seen in the external world is a function of internal assumptions, beliefs and responses to communication cues. Thus, there is often a tendency to manage with little regard for the subjectivity of external reality. For most people, beliefs reinforce perceptions and perceptions reinforce beliefs. Consequently, they may function in a paradigm that is based on a continuous cycle of repetitiveness, seeing the world as they have always seen it and making their decisions within the relatively narrow band of possibilities, not because opportunities are limited, but because perceptions typically are. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to change perceptions. These are learned early and they are controlled primarily at an unconscious level of awareness. However, successful entrepreneurs learn to become more aware of their intentions; and as they learn to change these intentions, their perceptions and responses to communication messages shift accordingly, and as this ability is shared with others in a team-building environment, achievements of the entire team are possible.

Being centered on intentions is the psychological process with which reality is affected (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). While every individual has been given a dream (Wilkinson, 2003), successful entrepreneurs are uniquely dream- (purpose-, expectation-) oriented individuals and, by the very nature of their innovativeness, are centered on dream-fulfillment and a connection thereto. The communication priority of Intentional Focusing enables them to remain consciously centered, thereby selecting their outcomes and aligning their perceptions with their dreams. Jack Welch, previously noted former chairman of General Electric, understood the concept of Intentional Focusing and how this skill could be used to enhance the achievements of his organization. He believed that the growth and development of his organization was strongly affected by three basic principles that he called stretch, speed and boundarylessness. Welch said that GE used these principles to build an entrepreneurial team with an "absolutely infinite capacity to improve everything." Essentially these principles meant the use of dreams to set targets--with often no initial idea of how to achieve those dreams.

Jack Welch believed that all entrepreneurs, and individuals within their teams, had the capacity to experience Intentional Focusing on a constant basis (Brady, 2004). The primary requirement is a clear vision and sensitivity to communication priorities. He asked his operational team on many occasions: "We can't create what we can't imagine. How big can you dream?" Throughout entrepreneurial leadership team-development, this paradigm priority is a reminder of the need to have all individuals involved in visioning, planning and developing processes. If they are not involved, they are likely to be perceptually incapable of connecting to one another and to the whole and, hence, of creating new innovative possibilities for the organization. Instead, they remain committed to typical mindsets, unable to make the perceptual choices required for successful innovativeness, communication, execution and dream fulfillment.

Entrepreneurs, and members of their teams, who are focused on intentions and thereby connected to expected outcomes are individuals who have programmed themselves for success (Dyer, 2004). Because they expect success, success more often than not becomes their reality. It is very difficult to get them to be pessimistic about achieving what they desire for their organization. Rather than communicating desires that may not materialize, intentionally focused communicators speak from an inner conviction that expresses their profound and deep-seated knowing that what is intended will occur. Their perspective is that we intend to create this and we know it will be a success. When they are engaged in conversation about this issue, they will typically say something like, "we refuse to think about what can't happen, because we will attract to ourselves and our entrepreneurial organization exactly what we think about, so we only think about what we are committed to have happen."

Steve Jobs, co-founder and original chief executive of Apple Computer, was just such an intentionally focused successful entrepreneurial communicator. As a relentless innovator, he came up with new product creations and operational procedures that actually delivered on their promise--thus raising the bar for competitive firms and affecting the development of personal computing, as well as other related products and industries. And perhaps most of all, his operational team believed in him and his intentional focus. In addition to his Apple Computer leadership, he has brought exciting management leadership to many other innovative team efforts such as NeXT and Pixar, and then returned to Apple where he quickly breathed life back into an organization that had suffered under relatively non-intentional focused leadership. He helped achieve this "new life" with the customer-oriented iMac, after which came the iPod and then iTunes innovations. Jobs and his various teams of creative and innovative believers have been, and continue to be, intentionally focused--convinced they are without a doubt going to be successful--and they typically are (Burrows, 2004).

Instinctive Responding

Within the universe, there exists a set of interactive cues or field of information. In reality, this interconnected informational system is much more like a great thought than the great machine metaphor of more traditional paradigms. Instinctive Responding focuses on the ability to connect in non-sensory ways with information communicated in this field of potentiality. The term "radical empiricism" is a term that has been used to describe the process of recognizing, connecting to and using this intuition-based knowing that takes the entrepreneur beyond mere sensory input (Taylor, 1994). In this superconnective state, an entrepreneur's ability to access previously unknown information increases appreciably. He/she thereby discovers a capacity for wisdom that may be virtually infinite. The entrepreneur becomes at one with the interconnected informational system of the universe. It is difficult, yet intriguing, to imagine an entrepreneurial organization with a leader who knows how to be intuitively receptive to the cosmic database and nurtures that priority within the organization.

Research suggests that many entrepreneurs do acknowledge a strong reliance on intuition. Few leaders, however, make their intuitive abilities public and even fewer attempt to propagate and integrate the Instinctive Responding communication priority into teambuilding activities and practices. The entrepreneur who makes Instinctive Responding a communication priority is able to do more than think instinctively; he/she is able to respond instinctively as well. Pekka Ala-Pietila, former President of Nokia, the Finnish cell-phone manufacturer, exemplifies the communication priority of Instinctive Responding (Ala-Pietila, 2004). He has given credence to intuition as a key source of information for effective entrepreneurial team leadership. He has noted that many times he has made decisions, not only on the basis of concrete data sources, but on the basis of intuitive thoughts. These came to him because of his ability to connect to non-sensory sources of information in addition to traditional data sources. Jorma Ollila, CEO of Nokia beginning in the early 1980s, has also reflected this skill in many of the decisions he has made in leading the firm (Reinhardt and Moon, 2005). In a dramatic decision regarding the early operations of Nokia, Ollila was instrumental in spinning off the non-cell phone operations of Nokia and focusing the firm on what he believed would be the wave of the future in terms of personal communication (cell phone) devices.

Gladwell (2005) popularized the theory behind the communication priority of Instinctive Responding in his bestselling book. He documents with both research and of mindful decision-making (McCarthy, 1994) suggests that the extensive gathering of information does not necessarily lead to better decisions. In fact, organizations are often focused on an impossible goal--reducing or even eliminating uncertainty through the collection of data. This is futile because even the amount of information that could be gathered about the simplest of decisions, such as developing a new product or new operational procedure, can involve limitless research. Rather than focusing on the gathering of information, the theory of mindful decision-making focuses on the importance of staying aware (mindfulness). A belief in certainty can actually be a huge disadvantage in entrepreneurial leadership and team-building. Certainty often leads to mindlessness on the part of the leader or followers. When an entrepreneur is certain, attention may cease. On the other hand, uncertainty keeps individuals attentive both to the external conditions and to one's intuitive impulses. Mindfulness helps to keep the connection to the field of infinite information open.

When the World Wide Web emerged as a major force in the marketplace of the mid-1990s, Pierre Omidyar, a programmer with General Magic that was at one time a Silicon Valley star, had an Instinctive Knowing that big businesses would be taking over control. "I wanted to give the power of the market back to individuals," he said (Hof, 2004). He spent the Labor Day weekend in 1995 coding a bare-bones web site he called Auction Web, seeking to create a perfect online market--one that would let individuals compete on a "level playing field" with big business. Today, eBay, Inc., as it is now known, has grown tremendously from its early days as the place to trade Beanie Babies to become one of the Web's most powerful corporate enterprises in its own right. In 2004, more than a billion items were listed for sale on eBay, from antique doilies to 2005 Hummer vehicles. That has been largely due to Omidyar's response to the communication priority of Instinctive Responding that the Web's real power was, in reality, its ability to connect people instantly around the world, so buyers and sellers alike could share near-perfect information about products, services, prices, promotions, distribution activities--and each other. In doing so, he accessed not only rational analysis, but also the Instinctive Responding communication awareness priority that served to bring into focus the information needs of the individuals involved.

As entrepreneurs incorporate space for mindfulness into their organizational team-development, they will learn to value Instinctive Responding as much as rational data information. The ability to be aware of and subsequently respond to nonverbal cues in the communication context is vital when learning how to make instinctive responding a communication priority. Research clearly supports the role of intuitive nonverbal information as a seminal element in all human communication (Burgoon and LaPoire, 1999; Dunbar and Burgoon, 2005). Some day, entrepreneurial leaders may very well look back at concepts such as empowerment or open-book management with amusement. After all, how can one person empower another if everyone has access to the same cosmic database? As more and more entrepreneurs learn to use the communication priority of Instinctive Responding, and develop operational teams to do the same, they will help create true comprehensively knowledgeable organizations--organizations in which all the stakeholders, within as well as outside of the firm, deeply value understanding from the inside out, recognizing the importance of intuitive ideas.

Inclusive Behaving

Based upon the premise of interconnectivity, Inclusive Behaving is the ability to make decisions and perform with concern for the whole--the whole self, the whole team, the whole organization, the whole society, and the whole world. Everything in the universe is a part of a correlated, complex whole in which each part influences, and is thereby influenced by, every other part (Lloyd, 1995). This priority can be used to design lives of impeccable action--lives that focus on decisions and actions that are good for both self and for the larger system(s). Using the communication priority of Inclusive Behaving leads the entrepreneur to decide to make more responsible choices. Each responsible conscious choice that he/she makes not only influences the probability of future similar choices; it also, because of interpersonal interconnectedness, affects the future choices of others. Entrepreneurial organizations and workplaces are fundamentally designed one choice at a time. When the organization's leaders commit themselves to the practice of values such as joy, hope, charity and peace, they are "loading the development dice" and increasing the probability that others inside and outside of the organization will also choose to act accordingly (Zohar, 1990). Each individual self is in an interrelated paradigm with every other self, and each decision implemented influences entire systems at many different degrees and operational levels. In essence, the implementation of this communication priority becomes a fulfillment of the dual-win commitment--in order to really win, others within the organization must also win. Entrepreneurs help to nurture win-win relationships when they lose their sense of us versus them and realize that we are all us (Dyer, 1995). The teamwork literature suggests that the single best and most effective communication strategy to enhance collaboration and cooperation is to develop a clear and elevating common goal (LaFasto and Larson, 2001).

Canon Inc.'s CEO, Ryuzaburo Kaku, is a well-known proponent of Inclusive Behaving or, as he calls it, "living and working together for the common good." In this regard, Kaku has become associated with the Caux Round Table (CRT), a twice-yearly meeting of top business leaders from Europe, Japan and the US, concerned about improving global economic and social conditions. CRT adopted "living and working together for the common good" and the Western concept of "human dignity" as the primary ethical ideals. Within Canon, examples of Inclusive Behaving have ranged from the use of solar energy to the recycling of toner cartridges. Canon is also deeply committed to human rights. Canon is the Japanese word for the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, and the organization is committed to communicating with and treating all of its stakeholders fairly. Kaku strongly believes this is not only the right way for business firms to function; it is the most market-oriented and profitable way as well (Skelly, 1995).

The communication priority of Inclusive Behaving places a new focus on social responsibility in entrepreneurial leadership, strategic decision-making and meaningful team-development. If everything in the universe is intricately interconnected, what a person does must in some way have a reverse affect on that individual--the doer. Therefore, if one wants prosperity in life or in an organization, that individual begins by giving and serving. This is based upon the principle of the unfailing boomerang--one's rewards in life usually come from the services that are first given--a reciprocal interactive relationship between giving and receiving. In a correlated universe, the more that is given, the more one typically receives. So-called socially responsible organizational behaviors (e.g., treating all stakeholders appropriately and respectfully, and taking good care of the environment and other resources) are, in actuality, merely common sense. As entrepreneurs use the communication priority of Inclusive Behaving, they and their associates discover that organizations can indeed do well and create economic value, while also doing good.

Purposeful Trusting

Inherent within entrepreneurial team leadership is change. The team-building communication priority of Purposeful Trusting is derived from change and the commensurate chaos that often accompanies it, thereby focusing on placing confidence in natural events and processes. To the individual who places such a confidence in change, there are no events that do not have purpose in the total scope of organizational operations--as well as life itself. Change demonstrates that chaos is inherent in the evolutionary process. It is the catalyst that creates the disequilibrium necessary for system evolution. Change is therefore the progenitor of all progress. Without change organizations stagnate and entropy ensues. Purposeful Trusting is the communication priority that assists others in managing change by expressing confidence in the mission and future of the firm; to trust is to be able to predict a positive outcome in spite of disruptions and challenges that are the typical byproducts of change. That's what a great mission provides--an inspirational and purposeful basis for trust.

Due to the inherent characteristic of innovative developments, and thereby changes in the typical organization, many entrepreneurs become exhausted from their attempts to predict and control corresponding situations. They often suspect that there really is a simpler way. Yet, they continuously find themselves face-to-face with the ego's fears. Purposeful Trusting is the ability to find confidence in the natural events and processes that accompany change--and to recognize the risk factor in entrepreneurial endeavors. That is, to succeed in innovative endeavors, one must first be willing to risk (Hamel, 2006). This skill enables members of the operational team to ride the waves of change, fully participating in the adventure without necessarily having to control the course. As the entrepreneur appropriately uses this communication priority, he/she begins to focus on the mystery of innovative existence, rather than on mastery over it--becoming less intent on manipulating change and more intent on appreciating it. In other words, those involved in various role relationships on the operational team help to free the organization to spontaneously evolve without the excessive interference that is brought on when the entrepreneurial ego becomes unnecessarily involved.

The typical distrust and dislike of change and chaos is deeply rooted in individual and organizational psyches. This causes individuals to often trade security for freedom and predictability for adventure. If an entrepreneur and the team members are to create what Dee Hock, the founder of VISA International, refers to as chaordic organizations--organizations that value both chaos and order, they must exorcise their internal demons of fear and dependence, and learn to appreciate the creative and innovative aspects of change (Waldrop, 1996).

Using the communication priority of Purposeful Trusting is especially challenging in traditional entrepreneurial teams and organizations where enormous value may be placed on prediction and control, and doing things the way they have previously learned to do them. There are, however, many new organizational processes for entrepreneurships like Owen's Open Space Technology (Owen, 1997), which demonstrate in quantifiable ways the ability of a team to quickly self-organize in meaningful and productive ways. Not only are the outcomes of such processes often impressive, but participants almost always prefer this open design to more traditionally structured options. As entrepreneurs and their operational teams individually and collectively begin to use the communication priority of Purposeful Trusting, many variations of self-organizing practices will emerge. Championing those practices requires entrepreneurial individuals to confront their own requirements for control. It takes a clear purpose, strong commitment and daily practice to take this road less traveled--the innovative unknown.

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has been and continues to be guided by the communication priority of Purposeful Trusting--reflecting a great deal of confidence in the natural events and processes that have accompanied innovative changes occurring over the years. Microsoft, as the world's largest software company, has often been accused of piggybacking on the innovations of other firms rather than inventing itself. It has even been accused of using its market clout to suppress creations from rivals. However, Gates was among the first to recognize that all sorts of companies, products and processes would be created if a computer's operating system and all the other software programs were separated from the hardware. With this innovative dream and organization he developed based upon a strong commitment to change, Gates is virtually universally credited with turning the disorganized PC industry of the late 1970s into today's huge industry, affecting the net worth of numerous individuals and organizations (Greene, 2004).

Relational Being

Relational Being, the central integrative point in the paradigm of key entrepreneurial communication priorities, reflects the importance of the transactive nature of communication within organizations, and the strength that results from maintaining a positive basis for this on the part of entrepreneurs and their team members. The transactive nature of communication acknowledges that communication is more than an interactive "message-sent-message-received" process; to communicate transactively is to experience mutual and simultaneous meaning creation (Beebe, Beebe and Ivy, 2007). Rather than viewing communication as a sending and receiving process, the transactive nature of communication implies that meaning is being created at the same time messages are expressed and interpreted. Because of the transactional (mutual and simultaneous) nature of communication, the Relational Being priority is the point at which all six of the previously-noted communication priorities come into primary focus. Positive and mutually supportive interactive relationships are prerequisite to human transformation within the innovative organization. It is through positive interactions that the potential of the "collective whole of the entrepreneurial team" is released. When individuals approach relationships with openness and a mutual respect, a new entity is created that is greater than the sum of the people involved. As individuals experience the perceptual transformations that are inherent in Relational Being, they begin to understand that their outer realities, as represented by associates, can become a projection of their inner beliefs. In many respects, these positive relationships therefore become interpersonal mirrors within which individuals can often see themselves reflected. When one's key values are observed in another, those observations simply serve to provide a reflection of the individual's own internal values, thereby providing positive reinforcing feedback about his/her own psyche.

This communication priority finds its basic meaning in the ability to be in relationship--an ongoing connection one makes with others through communication. Effective human relationships are based on unconditional positive regard, and recognition that in appreciating others, team members also recognize an appreciation for themselves as inseparable principles of Relational Being. This priority reinforces the ownership by team members of their own value framework. As this is done, the individuals involved discover that all relationships are extraordinary learning opportunities, and that none of them occurs without reason. They also discover that those who have the most to teach one are not always the most favored people, but they may be the most valuable contributors to well-being and effectiveness.

The core values and enduring purpose of Marriott Hotels and Resorts bring an interesting focus to this Relational Being priority. The stated core values are: "Concern for Employees, Commitment to Continuous Improvement and Overcoming Adversity, and Dedication to Hard Work and Having Fun While Doing It." In harmony with these core values, Marriott's core purpose is: "Make people away from home feel that they are among friends and are really wanted." One of the guiding principles of the firm is "Strength Beyond the Presence of Any One Individual." Marriott thereby demonstrates the crucial distinction between a company with visionary leadership and a visionary company. The sign of a recognized entrepreneurial leader such as J.W. (Bill) Marriott, Jr., president of the company, is not in being indispensable, but in building a firm that will nurture creativeness and innovativeness among its employees, and surpass itself in subsequent generations (Marriott and Brown, 1997).

Sam Walton, entrepreneurial founder of Wal-Mart, recognized the importance of Relational Being as a key communication priority in his organization. His focus was on interpersonal building among associates throughout the organization--cultivated by his constant traveling and visits to store locations. If entrepreneurs are to fully integrate the communication priority of Relational Being into their organizations, they must turn their organizational priorities upside down, creating the time and space for dialogue, trusting that improved relationships will translate into interpersonal strengths and improved results. In so doing, they will discover that progress is a byproduct of team-building and open-communication partnerships, and they will put away their outdated paradigms and become authentic change masters, changing themselves and their organizations.

Summary and Conclusions

The purpose of this article is to focus on communication priorities that enable the successful entrepreneur to enhance his/her organizational leadership to achieve the desired positive operational results. A new array of communication priorities is used as a way of approaching and understanding entrepreneurial behavior and leadership. In addition, this paradigm of priorities can provide a foundation for appreciably enhancing the effectiveness of entrepreneurial leadership and team-building. The article is based on a literature review of published descriptions of entrepreneurs of major organizations who have achieved remarkable success in innovative development and implementation.

The Paradigm of Key Communication Priorities (Figure 1) is composed of seven interrelated, yet separately distinguishable, elements: (1) Paradoxical Thinking: Nurtures understanding based upon use of both hemispheres of the brain; (2) Controlled Reflecting: Fosters reactions based upon internal self-talk rather than external events; (3) Intentional Focusing: Facilitates the ability to be centered on expected outcomes; (4) Instinctive Responding: Cultivates the ability to recognize and use intuitive impulses; (5) Inclusive Behaving: Nurtures actions based upon a concern for the whole; (6) Purposeful Trusting: Places confidence in events and processes that accompany change; and (7) Relational Being: Fosters strength from maintaining positive interactions with others, which is intricately connected to each of the other priorities, and thereby the focal point in the paradigm.

The first three skills are represented in the upright triangle in Figure 1, and are premised on three widely accepted intrapersonal principles focusing on a person's use of the whole brain, internal reaction to external events, and expected outcomes of human activities. The next three skills are represented in the inverted triangle in Figure 1, and are grounded on three universally-recognized externally-oriented interpersonal principles focusing on existence of an intelligent universe, interrelatedness of everything in that universe, and the use of change and chaos to create order in the universe. The seventh skill is connected to all of the other skills, thus occupying the central point of the paradigm.

Never before has there existed such opportunities for developing greater effectiveness in entrepreneurial leadership. Globalization, Internet communication, and the needs of contemporary society make it truly an exciting time for entrepreneurial leaders to seize opportunities for success. This is not a time to bring fear or panic. It is a time that offers, as no other time in human history, opportunities for those who are willing to risk themselves and their organizations in bringing uniqueness to the marketplace. As entrepreneurs attempt to effectively fulfill their leadership roles, as well as their management roles, a new spirit must be born within them. This spirit will take them beyond the world of mechanistic, reductionistic and deterministic thinking to a new set of communication priorities that is based on a paradigm that is more congruent with the complexities of successful entrepreneurship today. This article introduces the various dimensions of this new paradigm and the commensurate communication priorities that will result in greater effectiveness in entrepreneurial leadership. The authors welcome inquiries and dialogue with interested researchers and practitioners of entrepreneurial team leadership and development, as well as individuals interested in effective communication.

Contact Information

For further information on this article, contact

John R. Darling, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Marketing, McCoy College of Business

Administration, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas 78666

E-mail: jrd@gvtc.com

Steven A. Beebe, Professor of Communication Studies, College of Fine Arts and Communication,

Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas 78666

E-mail: sbeebe@txstate.edu

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John R. Darling, McCoy College of Business Administration, Texas State University

Steven A. Beebe, College of Fine Arts and Communication, Texas State University