From Management to Leadership: Strategies for Transforming Health, 3rd Edition

Defining Communication

Communication is the act of interchanging or imparting thoughts, opinions, ideas, emotions, or information by verbal speech, writing, or other methods. It has been described as the flow of information from a sender to a receiver by way of a channel (Figure 4.1). The channel might be verbal, the written or spoken word, or nonverbal, such as body language or the environment. When the receiver gets the message and experiences the same meaning as the sender, communication is complete. The sender may either perceive a change in the receiver’s behavior or hear that the receiver has received the message, and this feedback closes the communication loop.

Figure 4.1 The Communication Loop Model

This description of communication ...