As the old mantra goes, ‘It’s not what you say, but how say it that makes the difference.’ This simply means no matter how brilliant your idea is, unless you can reach out to people the right way, chances are, this great idea will be going nowhere, far from execution and implementation. It is no secret that great leadership always comes as a package with great communication skills as a must-have.
Effective and transparent communication what differentiates a successful leader from the poor one. Therefore, it is imperative for a business leader to be able to communicate efficiently to the employees. Communication skill is the most-sought after leadership trait.
An effective leader who can communicate well both with employees and the business partners, will foster a healthy workplace environment. A good communicator can help bridge gaps between the senior management and employees through transparent approaches.
This will eliminate any unnecessary misunderstanding and confusions that might disrupt the overall business workings. Efficient communication within a team will also encourage them to work more systematically and professionally. By all means, communication skill is an effective leadership trait that will help you gain respect, build teamwork and get things accomplished on time.
The problem however is, effective communication is not as easy. How can you influence and inspire others, if you find it difficult to express your mind clearly? You could be a rookie in the leadership role, which explains why you feel nervous upon communicating with your subordinates.
Or you might have been a veteran in the managerial position, but are still discovering the best approach to connect with your peers.
Below are seven keys to maintain effective communication, and be the influential leader to express ideas with clarity, motivate workforce by driving effective teamwork:
See: How Can Leadership Skills be Transferred?
It is crucial to note, that everyone has their own vocabulary. You might have higher degree than your employees, which explains why you have wider choices of words. However, all members in your team may not be as well versed as you.
Therefore, when it comes to effective communication as a leader, you should hold back the temptation and urge to use sophisticated words. Rather than using difficult terms which everyone perhaps cannot understand, it will be great if you could use simple everyday words that can be understood easily.
If you can accomplish results in an easy way, then why choose the hard way? Effective leaders know how to simplify complex tasks and convey them to employees in a simplified manner – by breaking down the information overload into smaller chunks of easily digestible info that employees can absorb and understand.
By simplifying complicated strategies into simpler ones, your colleagues can understand and memorise them better. Therefore, do not beat around the bush just get to the point with simple statements and language usage.
Gaining reputation as a cold and robotic leader is a nightmare for every aspirant. Therefore, when you rise into the leadership role, demonstrate warmth and open-minded personality. Such as for example, while you need to keep it strictly professional, you don’t have to be too serious and tensed in a meeting.
Cracking light jokes during serious meetings could pass on the message and keep your employees relaxed in their workings.
If you want your team to always be in high-spirits to collaborate with each other towards achieving organisational goals, speak positively. To foster positive workplace culture, it is important to speak positively and avoid negativity in any form from creeping in. Employees might hold lower sense of authority, but this doesn’t allow you the liberty as a senior leader to look down upon them or demean their contributions.
Our mind can be easily distracted with a small thing or a happening. Therefore, when you lead a meeting or team briefing session, carry visuals and presentations along with you. This will not only help put across your points clearly, but will also help employees stay focused on the matters at hand.
Leadership is not a one-man show. Sometimes, you have to stop, pause and listen to how your employees’ absorb your words. Pay attention to the slightest nonverbal gesture made by them, and you can tell whether they are really understanding your point, or getting confused instead. Only then, can you make significant improvements in the team with impactful communication.
While being a leader you sometimes tend to hold an authoritative tone to get things done, but this doesn’t mean you are immune to not making mistakes. It’s human to err. Hence, to make sure that you perform your job role well, you should ask for feedback from your employees, and members in the team.
Implement open-communication channels and transparency in the team workings, wherein everyone can express their opinions freely and share perspectives of looking at an issue or a business problem to come up with solutions.
Read also: Building Next Generation Powerful Leadership across Asia Pacific
