When it’s time for your CEO or MD to communicate to staff do you relax, knowing everything will be fine, or do you wince, knowing it will take months to repair the damage?

Workplace communications consultancy CHA has studied the way business leaders communicate and employees’ preferences and published the results in a report ‘Straight Talking’.

Surprisingly, employees rank the leadership skill of communicating with staff (76 per cent) way ahead of setting a clear vision for the company (43 per cent) or business acumen (40 per cent).

As far as employees are concerned, the key is straight talking: those who eschew performance for authenticity and manage to stay true to themselves as they move up the ranks.

And there’s no doubt employees are interested in their workplace, 85 per cent want to know about their organisation’s plans for the future and two thirds are interested in what’s going on in their organisation, even if it doesn’t directly affect their job.

But only 40 per cent of those employees say their leader communicates effectively with them. In the largest organisations, with more than 1000 staff, this dips to just 36 per cent.

CHA’s report identifies four styles of communication among business leaders. The one ranked most highly by employees is the considerate leader. This leader keeps employees up-to-date with both good and bad news, avoids jargon, tries to communicate directly rather than through line managers, encourages feedback and values employees’ views.

The considerate communicator is viewed as sincere, trustworthy and honest – and as a result more than half the leaders in this group are ranked as ‘good’, while two-fifths are rated ‘excellent’.

Colette Hill, chief executive, CHA says: “This is good news for leaders weary of being straight-jacketed into a presentational style better associated with evangelism than business management.

“The message is clear: leaders must communicate more frequently and directly with their employees, in a way that is open and frank, to strengthen their respect and loyalty.”

Unfortunately, the second largest group of leaders is the one rated the worst at communicating by employees. CHA describes these as ‘controlling’ and 60 per cent of this group’s communication skills are rated as ‘poor or dreadful’ with the rest showing room for improvement.

Although the controlling communicator is considered to be strong on business acumen, their employees describe their style as: dull, confusing, patronising, arrogant, cold and insincere and boring.

They are unlikely to seek staff views, tend to communicate too late – staff have generally heard the news via the grapevine – and 75 per cent of their employees say they would like to hear from them more, particularly in relation to the organisation’s future plans.

Controlling communicators are also much more likely to underestimate the intelligence of their workforce and how far staff can be trusted with information. As a result, they are unlikely to make their employees feel loyal and motivated.

Not all leaders are natural communicators, some are naturally reserved and although they are straightforward in their approach and say what they mean, they can come across as half-hearted. CHA describes them as ‘understated’ and cites the former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson as an example.

Their natural restraint means they can fail to engage staff, often because they choose to cascade their communications via line managers. The understated communicator sits squarely in the middle of the satisfaction ratings, with 6 per cent described as excellent and 5 per cent as dreadful.

Finally, there is the rarest of the business leaders – the charismatic communicator. Over half are judged good leaders, with 7 per cent considered excellent. They are particularly good at face-to-face communications, thanks to an informal and conversational style that wins the audience over.

But although they are excellent communicators, they can be perceived as being more keen to communicate with customers than with staff. Also, their need to keep their public persona and reputation high can make them inflexible.

So, what should leaders do? The message from the employees is: