Listen and Ask, Visualize and Story-Tell: Communication Skills that Develop Our Professional Collective Efficacy

Abstract

This chapter hopes to promote in our readers, colleagues, and us, our abilities to listen, ask, visualize and story-tell with more vitality, earnestness, and respect; all crucially productive leadership tools that increase the collective efficacy of our groups (Bandura 1995). And as Bandura so rightly said, “The times call for social initiatives that build peoples’ sense of collective efficacy to influence the conditions that shape their lives and those of future generations” (p. 525). It has become “climately” clear today that we need to change ourselves if we wish to save the world. Murphey below argues for better listening and asking while Knight describes the need for more visualizing and storytelling. While these may just be starting points, they need spreading. So be willing to listen to others’ stories, to ask for changes, to visualize your futures and gather your peers together for some awesome moments of storied collective efficacy.