Tips for Ethical Communication: A Conversation With Chris Trevett

When Department Chair Chris Trevett of the Claremont Core at Claremont Lincoln University thinks about a model for ethical communication, he reaches back 2,400 years to the Greek philosopher Socrates.

Socrates, he explains, employed a communication style that’s now known as intentional questioning. Rather than giving his listeners canned answers, he invited them to explore a problem and come up with their own solutions.

“He would just ask one of his pupils, ‘What is courage? Let’s define it,’” Trevett says. “But it didn’t even really matter what the ultimate definition was. It was about the process.”

For Trevett, the process of ethical communication goes deeper than simply being direct and honest, although those are worthy goals. It goes back to the root of ethics: ethos.

Communicating With Ethos

In Greek, ethos means character. For another Greek thinker, Aristotle, it was one of the three modes of persuasion. Rather than appealing to logos (reason) or pathos (emotion), ethos uses respect for the speaker’s character to persuade them.

To Trevett, ethical communication is grounded in the character trait of humility: “It’s applying humility and intellectual curiosity to situations, instead of just saying ‘I know what’s right.’”

“The way you communicate ethically is that you’re genuinely interested in what other people have to say and other people’s ideas.”

He cites one of his favorite quotes from actor and director Stephen Fry: “If you use your eyes to look out, not to be looked into, then you connect, then you’re interesting, then people want to be around you.”

He adds another quote from Fry: “Other people are always more interesting than one’s own.”

Intercultural Communication

Showing interest in other people’s ideas extends to their cultures, as well, Trevett says. Ethical communication, as part of organizational leadership, considers cultural differences and perspectives when interacting with others.

One aspect is linguistic: learning what phrases and metaphors mean to someone from another culture. When UPS first operated in Germany, for example, it changed the color of its drivers’ shirts from brown to green. There, brown shirts were associated with Nazi uniforms.

“It’s important to embrace the difference and have dialogue around it,” Trevett says. By doing so, communication can forge a deeper connection.

Embracing intercultural differences applies to organizational leadership at the office, too, he adds. It’s not unusual these days to have employees in their 60s working with managers in their 20s. Younger workers may use very different lexicons and forms of communication.

Where an older leader may send emails, he says, “Twenty-somethings don’t even want to use email anymore. They are really big on texting. They don’t even like to call anyone.”

Bridging that communication gap and avoiding misunderstandings can take extra effort on a leader’s part. A sender might double-check their language in an email or a text message to ensure the right tone. They might include guidance about an attached document so that the recipient knows how to interpret it.

Digital Tips for Ethical Communication

While humility and curiosity form the foundation of ethical communication, Trevett says, they lead to some specific and practical tips, particularly for the use of digital communication.

Avoid Shortcuts

With all the demands on a leader’s time and attention, Trevett says, it’s easy to fall into cognitive overburden. This is a state of mental exhaustion caused by working memory simultaneously processing too much information.

When that happens, a leader is tempted to take shortcuts, such as dashing off a reply to a text. However, shortcuts can lead to misunderstandings, Trevett warns. It’s time for consideration and contemplation. Think about what you want to say as though you were in a meeting.

Single Task

A related temptation is to try and do several things at once. “The more we keep adding things, the worse we get at them,” Trevett says.

The antidote is to focus on one communication at a time. It can also be helpful to consciously slow down the pace of work.

“The corporate mindset is very short term,” Trevett says. “We’re expected to give results quickly at times and make decisions quickly. But humans don’t always work well that way.”

Try Talking in Person

An alternative to dashing off a digital response is to seek a dialogue with the other person. “Dialogue offline creates a collaborative mindset,” Trevett says.

Dialogue also helps with understanding a co-worker’s point of view, particularly if it’s different, he adds: “We gather information and perspectives from those around us.”

Teaching Ethical Communication

When Trevett teaches online classes, he finds that discussion boards offer an excellent way to develop ethical communication skills. They allow students to pose questions to one another and probe one another’s experiences.

This includes discussion boards. “With intentional questioning, with Socratic questioning, with contextual questioning, I’m helping students make connections between their ideas and the ideas of their classmates,” Trevett says.

Another key resource for learning ethical communication is the Claremont Core. It’s an interconnected set of required courses that give students higher-level skills for leadership and making change. Courses include Invitation to Inquiry, Research Methods, and Strategic Communication.

Together, he says, they inject liberal arts principles into every field of study. He points to a prediction by billionaire investor Mark Cuban that liberal arts majors will be in greater demand than programmers or engineers because of their abilities to think freely.

At the heart of liberal arts, he adds, is communication. “If you’re taking organizational leadership, these are the liberal arts courses. You’ll find that communication is everywhere,” he says. “Essentially, everything we do is communication.”

Explore Ethical Communication in Organizational Leadership

A key part of running any organization is communication. A degree program like the online Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership at Claremont Lincoln University helps students develop the skills and perspectives to communicate ethically and effectively.

The programs help students sharpen their digital communication abilities while working and learning collaboratively. Discover more about how such a program can prepare you to be a leader and a change-maker in organizations and the world.