Great leaders are great communicators.

Leaders' effectiveness - in good times and bad - depends on their ability to inspire, engage, and activate many people to reach for a shared vision, meet common goals, and create significant results together.

Being a great communicator is one of top characteristics of great management leaders.

Powerful and effective leaders - the ones that people want to and will follow - know when and how to communicate, no matter what's going on with their teams or organizations.

Management faces many different emotions in the people they're trying to lead. At times, people are excited and energetic, at others, they feel fear, pressure, confusion, weariness or boredom on the long path to a major goal.

Great leaders know when to observe, when to listen, when to talk, when to show.

They use all the vital communication skills of leadership well.

They also know that the most powerful communication of all is their attitude and their actions. It communicates far more than what they say in any circumstance.

Imagine any of the world's great leaders and how things might have been different, had each been an average communicator, at best.

For example, think of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King or any of many other world leaders without their powerful oratorical and other communication skills.

Leaders face different communication needs and challenges, depending on the circumstances in which they're leading their organizations.

Here are a few of the main ones:

1. Normal, predictable cycles of operations

These circumstances involve vision-setting, planning, regular action, follow-up, problem-solving and process improvements.

During these times, communication focuses a team or management organization on goals, the path and processes to reach them, roles, consistent check-in points, the ways that progress is evaluated and ensured.

2. Major change or improvement efforts

These circumstances may involve reorganizations or mergers and acquisitions, very rapid growth, major improvements and other types of significant change.

During these times, communication focuses on what is or will be different, how the change will be achieved, ways of evaluating and communicating progress, as well as how to sustain momentum as change proceeds.

It is essential that management communications and processes at times of great change keep people focused, energized, engaged and encouraged as they go through the often very difficult work of change.

3. High-stress or emergency communications

These circumstances occur after natural disasters, such as earthquakes or hurricanes.

They also occur after man-made emergencies, such as those on 9/11/01, and when US and world financial markets dropped drastically in late 2008 and then lurched for some months beyond.

Other times of high stress include corporate crises of quality and product safety, creating loss of customer confidence, revenue and market share.

During these times, communication needs to focus on providing clear directions so people can try to regain their focus and bearings, as well as to meet immediate and then longer-term health, safety, security and other needs.

In addition, there's often a strong need for community in high stress times, with ways for people to share, express and process their often-frightening, yet memorable, shared experiences. (These are the conversations that begin with questions such as, "Where were you when you heard the news?" or "Where were you when it happened?").

No matter what type of circumstance leaders and their management organizations are in, most of the following stages of communication must be successfully addressed in each case:

1. Focus

Earn and hold the attention of their intended audience.

2. Connect

Reach people in a personally significant way so that they can relate to what is being communicated, "enroll," and take appropriate action.

3. Direct

Create a clear path for the many individual actions needed to achieve shared or individual goals.

4. Persist

Inspire people to draw on - and continue to draw on - patience, persistence, or, if needed, to see a difficult effort through to completion.

5. Check/correct

Ensure that actions are moving well toward goals and significant milestones.

6. Achieve

Coordinate efforts and information so that people can reach goals, solve problems, and create success, hopefully, in the easiest, clearest, most effective way.

7. Complete/Celebrate

Acknowledge that goals have been achieved, and create closure or recognition of that fact, in a valued, positive way.

When you complete interim tasks on the way to a big goal, pause to acknowledge that progress. Take a little time to refresh and regenerate before moving on.

And when you successfully pass the finish line for a project, find an appropriate way to celebrate your team's achievement, together.