Towards Conscious Leadership Communication: A Conceptual Model of How Internal Awareness Shapes Interaction
Isoaho, Iiris (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025120532796
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025120532796
Tiivistelmä
This thesis explores how internal awareness influences leadership communication and creates a conceptual, reflection-based model to assist supervisors in developing more purposeful and emotionally rooted interaction. Whereas leadership communication is usually viewed as an external skill set, recent research underlines the importance of internal psychological mechanisms, such as emotional awareness, thinking patterns, beliefs, and self-reflection, in shaping how leaders perceive, understand, and act within interpersonal situations. Based on ideas from the literature on emotional intelligence, reflective practice, and psychological safety, this thesis argues that conscious leadership communication arises when internal awareness and external behavior are in harmony.
The study follows the constructive research method: it combines theoretical perspectives that already exist in order to create a practical model for supervisory development. The connected key elements of the Reflection-Based Leadership Communication Model form the 1-2-5 Aware-ness Practice - a short micro-reflection method for supervisors to selfregulate emotional re-sponses in real time-and the Circle of Learning Workshop - a facilitated developmental process in which the supervisors are led to deepen their understanding of emotional recurring patterns, triggering events, and internal drivers. These two elements together create a continuum: from momentary awareness to long-term reflective learning.
The model was preliminarily tested with two groups of supervisors who provided reflections on its usability and relevance. The evaluations identified the model as usable, relevant, and as aiding emotional regulation and clarity of communication. Those who completed the two parts of the model reported that they gained insight, expanded their active emotional vocabulary, and found the 1–2–5 practice easier to use after the workshop. The evaluations also pointed to the need for application exemplars, emotional vocabulary resources, and more detailed structure integration guidance which led to adjustments in the model.
The thesis adds to the body of knowledge on leadership and communication concerning the mapping of internal awareness into an accessible developmental resource. It argues that psychological safety, relational leadership, and constructive conversation are interdependent to the communicative abilities of leaders and their ability to discern, understand, and modulate their internal processes. The completed model provides a useful resource for organizations who seek to enhance the communicative leadership that is more human-centered and emotionally and psychologically safe.
The study follows the constructive research method: it combines theoretical perspectives that already exist in order to create a practical model for supervisory development. The connected key elements of the Reflection-Based Leadership Communication Model form the 1-2-5 Aware-ness Practice - a short micro-reflection method for supervisors to selfregulate emotional re-sponses in real time-and the Circle of Learning Workshop - a facilitated developmental process in which the supervisors are led to deepen their understanding of emotional recurring patterns, triggering events, and internal drivers. These two elements together create a continuum: from momentary awareness to long-term reflective learning.
The model was preliminarily tested with two groups of supervisors who provided reflections on its usability and relevance. The evaluations identified the model as usable, relevant, and as aiding emotional regulation and clarity of communication. Those who completed the two parts of the model reported that they gained insight, expanded their active emotional vocabulary, and found the 1–2–5 practice easier to use after the workshop. The evaluations also pointed to the need for application exemplars, emotional vocabulary resources, and more detailed structure integration guidance which led to adjustments in the model.
The thesis adds to the body of knowledge on leadership and communication concerning the mapping of internal awareness into an accessible developmental resource. It argues that psychological safety, relational leadership, and constructive conversation are interdependent to the communicative abilities of leaders and their ability to discern, understand, and modulate their internal processes. The completed model provides a useful resource for organizations who seek to enhance the communicative leadership that is more human-centered and emotionally and psychologically safe.