Communication Styles

Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern is New Zealand’s 40^th Prime Minister. She has also worked as a leader of Labour Party since 1 August 2017. She has been a Member of Parliament for the Mount Albert constituency since 8 March 2017. Out of almost 200 countries, just 11 are led by women, in last October Jacinda Ardern become one among them. She is the youngest female Prime minister of New Zealand. In the world, many people tell women that they cannot have both motherhood and career at the same time but Jacinda Ardern proves how wrong and out-dated thoughts they have about womanhood. She is not just leading a country but also managing her family very well (Wallenfeldt, 2018). Jacinda Ardern is a leader who gives more emphasis on issues like economic inequality, addressing climate change and decriminalizes abortion. This essay is designed to understand the communication style of Jacinda Ardern with strength and weakness and after understanding the communication style, compare the particular communication style with the leader of other country and to understand in what way Jacinda Ardern communication style work in that particular country.

Every single individual has an exclusive communication style, communication is a way through which people can exchange information and interrelate with others. There are certain communication styles that enable people to communicate with each other without disrespecting and it makes communication process easy. Communication style encourages operative communication, reduces conflicts, and encourages the healthy relationship (Labour, 2017). There are five communication styles, which include Manipulative, Submissive, Passive-Aggressive, Aggressive and Assertive. The persons who practice manipulative communication style are very skilled at monitoring or manipulating others for their own benefit. Submissive style users are the ones who believe in pleasing other persons to avoid any clashes. Individuals with this type of communication will put the desires of others before theirs, because they see other people needs more vital than theirs. Passive-Aggressive style includes a person who shows passive side externally but actually, they show anger indirectly or behind the scenes. Aggressive style comprises winning, even if it is at somebody else’s expenses. Assertive is the most suggested communication style that replicates and encourages high self-esteem (Bakker & De Vries, 2013).

For leaders, the most important factor that is useful in bringing success to them is communication, way of expressing their view or how they address their audience. For the political leaders also the communication style is important (Al-Asfour & Lettau, 2014). Jacinda Ardern is the successful young political leader and her communication style plays very important role in building her political career. Her communication style includes emotional warmth, with frequent smiling and she uses hand gestures to connect with the public. The Prime Minister of New Zealand is really a great communicator and communication style use by Jacinda Ardern is Assertive.

Importance of Communication Style for Political Leaders

Good Communication can provide strength to Jacinda Ardern at a workplace and often integrated into varying roles. Being an Assertive leader Jacinda Ardern has some special quality like, during her public appearance and meetings she makes sure she will connect and communicate with each person. She uses to spend time to communicate the message more clearly, especially about changes. She always gives honest feedback in a helpful way. She knows the importance of positive communication feedback, if she not than it may discourage, demotivate, and make people angry (Leonard, 2018). She is self-sufficient to use good judgement to make decisions. She perceived a good judgment with a high probability of being successful. She is very good at maintaining the relationship and it is being possible because of her communication skill only while travelling to other countries her communication style help her in maintaining excellent relationship with that country. On the international platform, Jacinda Ardern consider to be a very effective personality and all just because of her communication style. With her communication style, she can convince the other political leaders to start collaboration with New Zealand.

While communication Jacinda Ardern used to be more control, comfortable and relax. She uses proper hand gestures while connecting with her audience. This will help the people to get involved in the conversation and proper facial expressions and eye contact enhance her personality. Jacinda Ardern delivers her speech with effortless fluency and flow and has the ability of extemporaneously play with language, an idea with flourish and flow. She is an energetic and inspirational personality of New Zealand (Burdon, 2015). 

However, some time for Jacinda Ardern the assertive communication style standout as weakness e.g. during her speech or meeting if the message or topic was not properly conveyed, then the people may consider her to be rude. Sometimes people may think that she is very over-confidence or arrogant person (Leonard, 2018). This is not a fault of Jacinda Ardern, assertive communication style promotes high self-esteem, and while protecting her self-esteem the misperception enters into the mind of people.  

There are various communication theories given by various authors some are effective communication theories, ineffective communication theories, structural theories, and economic and political theories. The most relevant theory that relates to Jacinda Ardern communication style is economic and political theories. Among various economic and political theories, social responsibility theory is most suitable. Social responsibility theory helps Jacinda Ardern in creating the professionalism in media by setting a high level of accuracy, information, and truth.  

Jacinda Ardern’s Communication Style

Kim Jong-Un is a North Korean political leader since 2011 and leader of Worker’s Party of Korea since 2012. He is the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea. Kim Jong-Un is a dictator of North Korea, he rules the people of the country, and all the functions performed by the citizen of a country are under his supervision and direction. There are many rules designed by the North Korean leader for his residents, which are tough to follow (Biography.com, 2018). 

Kim Jong-Un is the strict leader who wants to rule everyone and communication style he possesses is Aggressive. Well, he is not good at communication, during his public appearances, he uses a script to address people, but the words that script contains are aggressive. Kim Jong-Un always wants to be in win-win position. Aggressive communication provides him satisfaction, especially when there is nobody to speak up against him. His aggressive communication style made whole word his enemy (Bowden, 2015). 

The communication style adopted by Jacinda Ardern is assertive and by Kim Jong-Un is Aggressive. Both communication styles of leaders are like North and South Poles. The Leader of New Zealand is humble and polite on the other hand the leader of North Korea is rude and aggressive. The residents of New Zealand love their Prime Minister just because how she connects with them through her communication skill while the population of North Korea dislike their leader because, due to his aggressive communication style there is a huge communication gap developed between them. Jacinda Ardern communicates with her audience without a script but to address the audience Kim Jong-Un require a script. Jacinda Ardern is good with English but up until now nobody has heard English from Kim Jong-Un, he is not good at English. The gestures use by Jacinda Ardern during her public appearance and speech help in connecting audience but the gestures e.g. pointing and clenched fists use by the Kim Jong-Un make people scared of him. The main area where the Prime Minister of New Zealand consider for development is economic inequality, addressing climate change and decriminalizes abortion and leader of North Korea focus more on the nuclear weapon, wars and dictatorship (Isotalus, 2015). 

The conditions of North Korea will change if Kim John-Un becomes a leader with an assertive communication style. In present North Korea remains as one of the most exploitive authoritarian states in the world, who is ruled by Worker’s Party of Korea and Kim family for past seven decades. In North Korea, human right violation committed by the government, which includes rape, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, murder, enslavement, forced abortion and other sexual violence and constituted a crime against humanity. Being a leader of North Korea Kim John-Un is responsible to protect his citizens and their right, but he became a reason behind all those violations in the country (World report, 2017). As a good leader, it is very important that how he communicates with his residents. Kim John-Un communication style is not going to help him in connecting with the people of the country but if he adopts the communication style of Jacinda Ardern’s, then the residents of North Korea are going to loves their leader and feel connected with their leader. For the economy of North Korea, it will be better that their leader adopts the assertive communication style in place of aggressive leadership style (Egan, 2017). Kim John-Un is not an emotional person who understands the emotions of other people if he adopts an assertive communication style he will be able to understand the feeling of their residents, like what they want from their leader and what they accept they leader to do for them and for the country. It will be great for North Korea people if their leader will adopt assertive communication style.

References

Al-Asfour, A., & Lettau, L. (2014). Strategies for leadership styles for multi-generational workforce. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 11(2), 58.

Bakker-Pieper, A., & de Vries, R. E. (2013). The incremental validity of communication styles over personality traits for leader outcomes. Journal of Human Performance, 26(1), 1-19.

Biography.com. (2018). Kim Jong-Un Biography Military Leader, Dictator. Retrieved from https://www.biography.com/people/kim-jong-un-21125351.

Bowden. M. (2015). UNDERSTANDING KIM JONG UN, THE WORLD’S MOST ENIGMATIC AND UNPREDICTABLE DICTATOR. Retrieved from https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/02/kim-jong-un-north-korea-understanding.

Burdon. P. (2015). What makes Jacinda Ardern popular?. Retrieved from https://www.mediatrainingnz.co.nz/blog/what-makes-jacinda-ardern-popular/.

Egan. M. (2017). The Difference between Assertive and Aggressive. Retrieved from https://executivesecretary.com/the-difference-between-assertive-and-aggressive/.

Isotalus. P. (2015). Trends of Political Communication and Political Leadership. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266166620_Trends_of_Political_Communication_and_Political_Leadership_Perspectives_of_Finnish_Media_and_Party_Leaders_Trends_of_Political_Communication_and_Political_Leadership_Perspectives_of_Finnish_Media_and_.

Labour. (2017). Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern Prime Minister of New Zealand Leader of the Labour Party & MP for Mt Albert. Retrieved from https://www.labour.org.nz/jacindaardern.

Leonard. K. (2018). Advantages & Disadvantages of Different Types of Communication. Retrieved from https://bizfluent.com/info-8090058-advantages-disadvantages-different-types-communication.html.

Wallenfeldt. J. (2018). Jacinda Ardern PRIME MINISTER OF NEW ZEALAND. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacinda-Ardern.

World report. (2017). North Korea Events of 2016. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/north-korea.