The communication dynamics of Turkish CEOs as strategic leaders in change management

Many organisations targeting continuity will look to their leaders who hold the highest positions, namely, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) or General Managers (GMs), to overcome problems surfacing during change processes. In so doing, we argue in this study that leaders must be first skilful in managing change, whereupon a leader’s communication skills must rise to the occasion for a successful organisational change and the language used by CEO must positively influence and motivate employees.This study focuses on discovering whether a specific language is used by top executives of corporations in Turkey during an organisational change process. We endeavour to ascertain the communication dynamics of CEOs who have managed change in a private corporation, in Turkey and to note whether these CEOs engaged a different communication style and exceptionally pinpointed language to build readiness for change in their organisations. The research took the form of an in-depth study, conducted with 10 CEOs from various sectors, with data gathered through conversation analysis, which was subsequently evaluated. We concentrated on the words themselves as used by CEOs to define the components of change management.Our findings indicated that the use of some words have a direct relationship to the components of organisational change. Turkish CEOs and GMs emphasised that mastering communication and language willbe the most crucial characteristic of a successful leader and the readiness for change depends on the degree of openness and flexibility within an organisation.