Any good leader must have good leadership communication skills. They are crucial in leading.
Let’s consider it for business and how good communication skills are an important part of effective leadership.
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What is Effective Communication in a Good Leader?
Some are born leaders and others might find themselves thrust into a leadership role and have to put in a little effort to master the necessary skills to lead well.
What do Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and Warren Buffett have in common? The ability to lead and lead well. They are all effective communicators and have the necessary communication skills.
They understand the importance of conveying a vision people want to participate in. Julius Caesar and Napoleon both understood propaganda and were able to convince people that their defeats were actually victories. Effective modern leaders like Branson and Jobs built companies from scratch, with every employee and financial backer convinced of the importance of the mission and willing to contribute in his or her own way.
No opportunity has ever been without obstacles, pitfalls, and shortcomings. It’s never just success. It’s how leaders respond to adversity that sets them apart and makes them great leaders.
As with many things in life, timing is also critical. Learning how to communicate effectively to your chosen audience at the right time and the right place can be difficult, but can reap great benefits.
Know Your Audience
The most important aspect of any effective communication is knowing your audience.
No two audiences will ever be alike so being flexible with communication styles is a great skill for any leader to have. Your audience whether it’s –
- Staff
- Shareholders
- Business partners
- Prospective business partners
- Vendors
- Customers
- Children taking a tour of your facility
…and more.
What you say and how you say it is the basis of effective communication skills.
The Right Timing
Timing is key. For example, no business leader looks forward to giving out bad news, but sometimes the more you avoid it, the worse things can become. If there is a downturn and you have to start laying off people, this needs to be conveyed sooner rather than later.
The Right Style of Communication Skills
Using the example of having to give bad news, you also have to choose your moment and communication style. Should you say nothing to anyone other than those getting the pink slip? Email everyone? Or should you send out an email to make a date for a very important meeting?
Once everyone is at the meeting, how should you announce the news? Do you just blurt out that there will be layoffs and leave it at that? Or will you explain the reasons behind the decision, what the next steps will be, and what you think will happen going forward?
Listening is just as important a leadership skill as speaking. Will you give staff a chance to ask about the redundancies and the situation as a whole? Or leave it to your managers?
Once the meeting is over, you will then have a number of follow-up steps and options and time to use your communication skills. Will you speak to each person getting the pink slip, or let your hiring manager do it? Or will these workers just be given notice and no one will say a word of regret or appreciation for all their past efforts?
Sometimes communication, for good or ill, comes from not saying anything at all. A worker with a pink slip who has not been given clear reasons or thanked is likely to feel a lot more disgruntled than one who is treated like a human being.
What You Say and Don’t Say Matters for Effective Communication
On the other hand, going into too much detail might open up an entire legal minefield if the worker believes the lay-off is because you “don’t like them” or some form of discrimination is going on. Accusations of racism, sexism, ageism, and other forms of discrimination can all damage your company and even leave it open to serious financial repercussions.
Therefore, it is very important to be clear about the way all workers are spoken to, and this will come from you as the leader, to filter down to managers and staff. Any forms of off-color jokes, bullying, or aggressive tendencies should be discouraged at all times, and in all forms – including email and social media accounts, as well as face-to-face dealings between colleagues. Even “harmless teasing” can be hurtful and seem bullying to some individuals.
Following Up
Whenever something important is being conveyed, follow-up can make all the difference between success and failure.
Using the lay-off example above, for those staff who remain after the cuts, holding another meeting to talk about the next steps will be important. Meetings will also need to be held in order to make sure every task that the people who were laid off were doing will be covered now that they are gone.
Being Visible
When times get tough, even the best leaders want to just go into their office and hide. But being visible can often be one of the best forms of leadership. So too can an open door policy, in which people feel that they can come to you with questions and concerns and that these will be taken seriously and treated with respect.
Setting the Tone
The most important aspect of leadership can often be to set the tone and use mindful communication. A positive, upbeat leader with a can-do attitude is more likely to gain followers than someone who delivers consistently negative messages. Even when things are bad, a leader with good communication skills will be able to reframe the issues in such a way as to maintain a loyal following.
For example, in terms of the lay-offs, it should be made clear that these short-term losses are being made in favor of long-term gains.
If two departments are merged, a good leader would indicate all of the benefits and how the work can be done more efficiently.
Conveying Change
Many people hate change. Even though it is an inescapable fact of life, people get so comfortable in their routines that any change can be very upsetting and even seem like a serious threat to all life as they know it. In most cases, this will not be true, but having empathy for this point of view can help smooth out the transitions.
Being a Good Listener
Many people believe that being a good leader is all about speaking powerfully. The truth is that a good leader with great communication skills listens as well. They show empathy, value opinions, and are constantly learning from others rather than thinking they have all the answers.
Understand that people are only human. Everyone makes mistakes. If a mistake was made, find out the reasons why it happened. Listen and share viewpoints. Seek ideas and innovations. Give people another chance if you think they deserve it.
Treat colleagues the way your best boss treated you. We can never walk in another person’s shoes, but we can try to be more understanding and tolerant if they are having professional or personal problems so that everyone feels valued.
Never Assume
Always be clear in your verbal and written communications. Confirm anything important in writing, including email, such as after a phone conversation or team meeting. Check and double-check, especially when any deadlines are approaching. It is better to summarize important points and dates briefly in your communications and repeat yourself, for example, than assume that everyone knows it all already when they might not.
These are some of the most important aspects of effective communication if you are a business leader. Your approach will differ somewhat depending on whether the communication is verbal or written. Let’s look in the next section at verbal communication.
Effective Verbal Communication Skills
Verbal communication is often taken for granted because we can all speak, even if we are not good writers. However, effective verbal communication skills do not come naturally to everyone. Fortunately, it is a skill that can be learned with a bit of time and effort.
The Importance of Verbal Communication
Spoken words matter beyond just the clear exchange of information. Style and tone of delivery can also affect what is being said and how it is being received by the audience.
Speaking in person and over the phone clearly and concisely is an important skill for any leader to develop. In addition, a good leader must understand the difference between the two and other things that contribute to communication other than the words and phrases being used.
Face-to-Face Communication
Communicating in person can be one of the most efficient ways to convey ideas and open up the floor for discussion. It may not, however, be the most efficient way to give detailed information. Knowing the difference between the two can often mean the difference between success and failure when it comes to planning new projects and initiatives.
For example, it’s great to be able to chat face-to-face, but a rushed conversation as you are passing someone’s desk is not an efficient way to expect things to get done correctly. A formal meeting or an email would be a better choice.
Body Language
Your body language will say a lot about who you are as a person and what your communication style is. Careless body language can also undermine the message that you are trying to convey. If your body language does not match your spoken words, there can be a serious disconnect which can be confusing or suggest to people that you are not telling the truth or are in some sort of mood.
For example, if you speak and listen with your arms crossed in front of your chest, this could relay a number of negative messages. Your audience might think you are defensive, angry, or disinterested, especially if you donít look at them or turn sideways.
Folded arms also send out the signal that people are supposed to stay away from you. They might even indicate stubbornness or refusal, so that people may never ask for what they need because your body language already seems to be telling them no.
Act Natural
A more relaxed and natural body stance with your arms hanging loosely at your sides is a much more welcoming posture when you are dealing with people face to face.
When speaking, try not to fiddle. Practice stillness. Maintain eye contact. If you are in a large group, look around the room. Donít pace, but do move around as needed. When listening, nod your head. Listen carefully. Don’t try to jump in to speak. Wait until the person has finished. Then repeat what you understand to be the essence of the question, in case anyone hasnít heard, and to be sure you have heard correctly.
In terms of presentations such as PowerPoint decks, these days many businesses live and die by their decks. Therefore, it is really important to focus on this skill so you can create and give presentations that will maintain interest, persuade, and inform, rather than send people off to sleep.
Public Speaking
In the course of meetings, presentations, conferences, and so on, you will have to speak in public to audiences both large and small. Studies have shown that public speaking is the number one fear that most people have, while death is only number three. As someone once joked, this means most people would rather be in the coffin than give the eulogy over it.
However, this does not have to be the case. There are many ways to practice public speaking in order to become better at it and do it with more confidence and effectiveness. It is just a case of being willing to put in the time and effort to practice until you are perfect.
Or, if you are not perfect, at least you can do a much better job than you are doing at the moment – if you feel that this is a personal weakness that needs to be addressed in order to become a better communicator and leader.
Conveying Confidence
One of the reasons why it is so important to be a confident presenter is that if you look and sound confident, your audience will feel confident in your message and that you are telling them the truth and not covering up anything.
Going back to the example of having to indicate that lay-offs are imminent, people will feel much more confident about the future of the company if you sound positive about this being a necessary development for the strength of the company going forward. If you sound hesitant, nervous, or unsure about the need to take these steps, your audience in turn will also grow nervous.
Inspiring Your Audience
Great leaders inspire people to follow them. Julius Caesar would have never been able to cross the Rubicon and become the leader of the Roman Empire if he had lacked confidence or shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “Well, maybe it will work out.” Instead, he said, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
In every company, there will be certain leaders who set the tone and who people look to for inspiration. Even if you are currently working in a job that has no leadership responsibilities at the moment, it is still possible for you to set the tone and take the lead on projects and initiatives.
If you are willing to do so and can inspire people to follow you, it will be easy to demonstrate your leadership potential, and use what you accomplish as concrete examples of real achievements when it comes time for your end-of-year review or you decide you want to ask for a raise.
For all these reasons, face-to-face communication is key to getting things done and sharing a common vision for what the company is supposed to be like. Phone calls can help as well.
Watch Your Words
Words have power. Just look at any interesting editorial in a newspaper or some of the worldís most famous speeches in history. Say what you mean and mean what you say. There’s no need to use fancy words and sound like a dictionary. Be clear and to the point so that everyone who reads what you have written can understand it. Use a thesaurus as needed to find synonyms. Look up any words in the dictionary that you donít know.
Watch Your Paragraphs
Short, sharp paragraphs work best for business writing, as well as for digital communications such as emails, websites, and PowerPoint decks. There’s no need to write long-winded college essays to get your point across.
Teaching leadership skills and good communication skills might be difficult at times, but it can be worth it if you are able to run a more efficient company – with better communications that people will be interested in reading, and that instructs your staff and ensures everyone is on the same page.
Conclusion
Some people argue that there will always be leaders and followers and that some people are born leaders. They might have a strong personality and wish to be a leader, but it will take a special kind of person to get other people to follow them. They will usually accomplish this through visible achievement – that is, leading by example and thus showing others how things are done.
A good leader can demonstrate how to communicate well by doing it themselves, making it a priority in their face-to-face, phone, and written interactions. Assess yourself as a communicator in your leadership role and see if you can improve. In this way, you can travel even further along the road to success as a leader.
To your best success!
FOR MORE CHECK OUT MY SHORT VIDEO ON MINDFUL COMMUNICATION BELOW
