In my function as an organisational psychologist, there is a high level of communication skill required to be effective in our role. As an organisational psychologist I am often called upon to advise a number of different areas of the business and our collaboration is a necessity to achieve the best possible outcomes for our business and our employees. I often work with HR on policy development and revision, job analysis and work design, leadership development programs, and critical incident support. I work with external partners both those within our industry and external to our industry such as our Employee assistance program provider, our health and wellness contractor on return to work programs, and our industrial relation specialists around investigations into a wide range of issues from bullying and harassment to systemic or cultural issues that may exist in our workplace.

Organisational communicators can be divided into two main categories: leaders and followers. Leadership has been studied from a myriad of different perspectives including, inter alia, personality traits, power, situational demands, and transactional and transformational characterisations. However, one viewpoint that has been comparatively neglected in the study of leadership is that of communication. This is somewhat surprising, given that communication is at the very epicentre of effective leadership and that conducive communication has been shown to have huge benefits for corporations. As organisational psychologists we need to display and practise effective communication as both a leader and a follower when working with professional and support services to facilitate effective collaboration and improve outcomes for all involved.