Pamela Shockley-Zalabak

Amid a world marked by skepticism, disruption, and eroding confidence, Game Changers in Leadership Communication vividly describes how formal and informal leaders can engage in communication to build or destroy trust when it matters most. Drawing on decades of research and real-world experiences, Pamela Shockley-Zalabak and Sherwyn Morreale reveal how everyday communication choices can result in leaders becoming either positive or negative game changers. Through interviews and case studies, the book provides thought-provoking and interactive guides to help work through complex problems around trust and leadership. It integrates leadership communication theory with five research-based drivers of trust—competence, openness and honesty, identification, reliability, and concern for others. It addresses such salient topics as decision-making, crises and disasters, global workforces, the global rise of authoritarianism, politics, AI, and ethics. This book serves as a primary or supplementary text for upper-division and graduate courses within the subjects of organizational communication, leadership, management, business, public affairs, and public relations, and will also be of interest to current and aspiring leaders.

Amid a world marked by skepticism, disruption, and eroding confidence, Game Changers in Leadership Communication vividly describes how formal and informal leaders can engage in communication to build or destroy trust when it matters most. Drawing on decades of research and real-world experiences, Pamela Shockley-Zalabak and Sherwyn Morreale reveal how everyday communication choices can result in leaders becoming either positive or negative game changers. Through interviews and case studies, the book provides thought-provoking and interactive guides to help work through complex problems around trust and leadership. It integrates leadership communication theory with five research-based drivers of trust—competence, openness and honesty, identification, reliability, and concern for others. It addresses such salient topics as decision-making, crises and disasters, global workforces, the global rise of authoritarianism, politics, AI, and ethics. This book serves as a primary or supplementary text for upper-division and graduate courses within the subjects of organizational communication, leadership, management, business, public affairs, and public relations, and will also be of interest to current and aspiring leaders.

This new book describes a trust-based approach to understanding and effectively dealing with the critical divides in the US. that are contributing to anger, fear, distrust of our leaders and institutions, distrust of each other, and ultimately polarization and untenable gridlock. In contrast to existing books about trust, this is the first book to directly examine the cataclysmic events of 2020 and 2021-the Covid pandemic, an economy in turmoil, racial clashes, and a trust-intensifying national election-through a lens of trust. The book is not based on second-hand information; rather, the content derives from the authors' first-hand research and lived professional experiences. Finally, while national polls have identified trust in leaders and institutions as a critical problem, this book is the first to identify and describe what drives trust, why it is present, or not, and how to build or rebuild it.