What are the barriers of upward communication?

Answer 1

From John C.

There are quite of few major barriers, and I have personally encountered a lot of them over my management career. At the very top of this list is a manager status and authority. This area alone can cause many barriers to communication. This usually involves someone with higher status superseding the authority of his or her superiors even though the chain-of-command recognizes the latter with the authority. (South University Online, 2011) This sometime causes internal conflicts and the supervisor in turns does not relay the communication of the person of status upward.

Another barrier to upward communication stems from usually large companies that employ inflexible chains-of-command. (South University Online, 2011) Because of a structure like this, team members may feel intimidated by their boss and may not be willing to be honest and speak up. In addition, team members see a structure like this where upward communication deals normally with compliance of the plans set into place by upper management such as reports.

A company's hierarchical structure by its very nature can also cause a communication barrier through the act of filtering. Every layer of management acts like a filter. Filtering occurs when messages pass through an intermediary in the communication channel altering the original communication causing the end message to be substantially different from the original undermining the reliability of the message causing unintended miscommunications. (South University Online, 2011)

Specific departments within the company can cause communication barriers via using department specific acronyms in their communication that no one else in the chain-of-command understands. (South University Online, 2011) For example, when the IT department requests a new APC UPS to keep their systems running in the event of a blackout, does management outside of IT know what that means? Of course not! Just because one department has developed its own jargon, that does not mean others will know what they are trying to communicate.

Some companies simply disregard communiqués from lower levels in the organization and do not deem suggestions and concerns as significant. Because of this kind of culture within the company, management up the chain-or-command only hears what workers say, rather than actively listening to its team members. Moreover, corporate cultures such as these create artificial barriers causing many problems with upward communication such as stymieing workers' with the opportunity to send feedback. (South University Online, 2011)

Works Cited South University Online (2011). Principles of management MGT2037 XE: Week 4: Organizational obstacles to communication. Retrieved from http://myeclassonline.com