Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership Portfolio · Gonzaga University · School of Professional Studies
ORGL 504
Organizational Communication
Communication Philosophy
Seeing through the different lens as a consultant to a local community organization provided a hands-on learn-by-doing experience that contextualized our classroom learning in ways that far exceed description. The skills applied within this course translated to an ability to complete strategic plans with an emphasis on what is really being communicated within organizations. — Applied reflection, ORGL 504
Course Overview
Course Focus
An exploration of contemporary concerns related to the meaning and functions of communication within organizations. Topics included organizational communication within culture, socialization, systems theory, communication and technology, and globalization — grounded in Conrad & Poole’s Strategic Organizational Communication.
Distinctive Pedagogy
In lieu of traditional essays, the course invited students to partner with a live organization to conduct a full Communication Audit. The result was a consulting engagement with Hand to Hold — a national NICU family support nonprofit — producing a structured, evidence-based audit report.
Significance
This course formalized the communication analysis skills that underpin all subsequent organizational leadership work — from SWOT analysis to strategic planning — while deepening the practitioner relationship with NICU family advocacy that anchors the doctoral research.
Competency Framework
Expected Competencies
- Strategic Communication AnalysisIdentify, evaluate, and discuss key issues affecting communication and leadership within organizations, including how communication impacts effectiveness, culture, and engagement.
- Theoretical ApplicationApply organizational communication theories — systems theory, sensemaking, technology, and globalization — to interpret and improve communication practices.
- Analytical SkillsCritically assess communication patterns and leadership messaging within organizational contexts, using case studies and real-life scenarios to recommend improvements.
- Self-DevelopmentEnhance personal communication and leadership effectiveness, particularly within diverse teams and evolving organizational environments.
- Ethical Critical ThinkingIntegrate ethical reasoning into communication analysis, particularly in contexts involving power dynamics, transparency, and dissent.
Demonstrated Mastery
- Strategic Issue IdentificationIdentified systemic communication breakdowns and barriers impacting Hand to Hold’s organizational effectiveness through a comprehensive communication audit.
- Theoretical InsightApplied theories of organizational communication and sensemaking to real-world phenomena, including employee silence and communication avoidance in hierarchical settings.
- Communication Analysis and EvaluationUsed structured audit tools and qualitative evaluation to assess the quality, consistency, and impact of internal and external communication strategies.
- Leadership Through CommunicationStrengthened personal leadership capacity by improving communication effectiveness, conflict resolution, and cross-functional collaboration insights.
- Ethical ReflectionApplied critical thinking to ethical issues in communication — especially how fear, hierarchy, and perceived risk shape when and how people speak up within organizations.
Course Artifacts
Artifact 01
Strategic Communication Audit of Hand to Hold
Organizational Development Consultant Report · September 2014
A full consulting-grade communication audit of Hand to Hold — a national nonprofit whose mission is to lessen the impact of a NICU stay through comprehensive navigation resources and family support. The audit examined four communication strategies (traditional, relational, cultural, and network) across four methods: internal telephone and email, external media and print, survey, and Board and staff interviews.
The audit reviewed the handtohold.org website, the preemiebabies101.com blog, the NICU Graduate Handbook, internal Basecamp communications, and email and telephone protocols. Findings addressed strengths in relational and cultural organizing, gaps in traditional structure, and network opportunities for coalition building with peer organizations. Strategic recommendations focused on building formal organizational structure to free the Executive Director for higher-order leadership.
Note: out of confidentiality and continued relationship with the organization, the full findings are maintained privately. The audit is presented here as a methodological and professional artifact.
Artifact 02
Silence as a Form of Organizational Dissent
Critical analysis of Bisel & Arterburn’s Sensemaking-Resource Model (2012)
A rigorous scholarly critique of Bisel and Arterburn’s Communication Research Reports article examining why organizational members choose silence over negative feedback to supervisors. The essay analyzed the study’s five sensemaking rationale for silence, interrogated its methodological limitations, and called for more focused research design.
The critique identified weaknesses in the study’s sampling strategy (drawn from the authors’ professional network, skewing toward higher education), the treatment of multi-response participants as independent data points, and the unexplained inclusion of a random 10% re-coding protocol. Strengths acknowledged included the study’s important contribution in naming silence as structured organizational dissent rather than passive absence of communication.
The Four Strategies of Organizing
Conrad & Poole · Strategy 1
Traditional
Emphasizes scientific management, defined roles, job descriptions, and production goals. Essential for structural clarity but risks becoming rigid bureaucracy if not balanced with relational and cultural strategies. At Hand to Hold, the absence of traditional structure meant the Executive Director’s leadership bandwidth was entirely consumed by operational detail.
Conrad & Poole · Strategy 2
Relational
Decentralization, participatory decision-making, autonomy, and meaningful employee relationships. Hand to Hold’s culture was deeply relational — its peer support model and volunteer network were its organizational backbone — but without structural counterweight, relational energy could not be channeled into sustainable growth.
Conrad & Poole · Strategy 3
Cultural
Recognizes that every organization and every individual brings a unique combination of life experiences, professional history, and worldview. “This is how we do it here” captures the cultural strategy. Hand to Hold’s culture of survivor solidarity — families helping families — was its most distinctive organizational asset and its primary communication differentiator.
Conrad & Poole · Strategy 4
Network
The change-agent strategy that looks outside the organization to identify external influences, peer organizations, competitors, and industry trends. For Hand to Hold in 2013, the NICU family support landscape was rapidly expanding; the network strategy offered pathways for coalition partnerships, referral relationships, and positioning within the broader prematurity advocacy ecosystem.
Five Sensemaking Rationale for Organizational Silence
Bisel & Arterburn (2012) identified five reasons organizational members choose silence over negative feedback to supervisors — each a sensemaking process, not merely an absence of courage. The Critical Analysis Essay interrogated both the findings and the study’s methodological foundations.
Predicting Harm to Themselves
Fear of job loss, reduced pay, or foreclosed opportunity. The most prevalent rationale by a wide margin, reflecting the power asymmetry embedded in hierarchical communication structures.
Constructing Supervisor as Responsible
Hierarchical role legitimizes silence — if it’s the supervisor’s job to know, the subordinate’s silence becomes a form of role compliance rather than evasion.
Questioning Their Own Expertise
Subordinates doubt their own credentials or standing to deliver critical feedback, making silence feel professionally safer than risking a perceived overreach of role.
Predicting Supervisor’s Deafness
The belief that feedback will not be used or acted upon. When leaders do not demonstrate receptivity, subordinates rationally calculate that speaking up has no return on investment.
Constructing Timing as Inopportune
Waiting for a “better moment” — a supervisor in a better mood, a lighter workload, a less charged environment. Often the better moment never arrives.
Integrative Themes
Communication as Organizational Infrastructure
The audit demonstrated that communication is not a soft skill layered on top of organizational structure — it is the structure. At Hand to Hold, every gap in formal communication architecture translated directly into Executive Director overload.
Silence as Structured Dissent
Bisel & Arterburn’s most important contribution was reframing silence not as passivity but as an active, rational, sensemaking response to perceived organizational conditions. Leaders who create cultures of silence are not merely failing to listen — they are actively shaping what gets communicated.
Scholar-Practitioner as Consultant
Conducting a live audit rather than a hypothetical case study demanded that theoretical frameworks earn their keep against real organizational data. The experience formalized a consulting methodology — assess, diagnose, recommend — that would characterize all subsequent leadership practice.
NICU Advocacy as Organizational Laboratory
Choosing Hand to Hold as the audit organization was not coincidental. It positioned neonatal family advocacy as a site of serious organizational analysis — an organization with a mission worthy of the same rigorous communication scrutiny as any corporate entity.
Bridging Concepts
The communication frameworks developed in ORGL 504 — the four strategies of organizing, sensemaking theory, audit methodology — became permanent analytical tools in the doctoral research, particularly for understanding how NICU systems communicate with and about families.