When Leaders Don't Read Email - Emerging Nurse Leader

“I don’t do email” one of my graduate leadership students recently told me. I asked her about the official form of communication in her organization, and it is email. So you don’t respond to messages, I asked. Rarely, she told me. I wondered what her staff and supervisors thought about this behavior. What does this lack of responsiveness do to the employee’s perspective about her as a leader, and the impact on the culture of the organization. If you think about your own personal experience with this, how did you feel the last time you sent an important email and received no response. Maybe at first, you thought the individual was busy and even perhaps sent a second email. Then with no followup, you probably wonder what you are doing wrong and what is the problem with your relationship. But after several episodes like this, staff will inevitably feel that you are indifferent and really just don’t care much about others.

Sure, we are all in email overload but this is no excuse for bad behavior particularly on the part of nurse leaders. It sends a message to staff that they are not important and does not promote a positive work environment. It can also impact how you are perceived as a leader in a very negative way. Sometimes, leaders don’t respond to an email because they don’t want to answer negatively but in many respects no answer is far worse than a negative answer. It exacerbates conflict. Leadership expert, Margaret Hefferman, has noted that how responsive you are to email in today’s environment often defines your leadership. She also notes that the following are important to consider:

Your response time to email is a non-verbal cue about your leadership behavior. Research shows that the longer you take to respond, the more negatively you are viewed as a leader.
Replying to email is simple politeness; ignoring it suggests that you don’t care about the issue or the person who wrote to you. It’s virtually impossible to have good working relationships if your silence contains, or even hints at, contempt.
How you deal with email says something fundamental about how reliable you are. And that translates into trust.
Reputations are comprised of many such apparently minor details. It’s easy to think that they don’t matter and, individually, they might not. But cumulatively your daily behavior is what people notice and like or dislike, trust or distrust.
You can actually build an excellent reputation and even fame by just being responsive to requests from others.
Thinking that no response is the new no is in fact passive aggressive and rude. Most people can handle rejection far better than not knowing.

Nurse leaders should make responsiveness to email a priority. You can’t opt out of the official communication system used by the organization. Recognize that response time says volumes about your character. If you are busy, just acknowledge the email and let them know you will get back to them. If you miss an email, apologize and acknowledge it. Improving your email etiquette will improve your leadership reputation in ways that you might not anticipate.

Read to Lead

Eurich, T. (April 7th, 2015). The hidden costs of ignoring email. Entrepreneur Blog.

Hefferman, M. (May 20th, 2013). How do leaders respond to email? CBS Moneywatch Blog