Leadership Training: Effective communication - an essential leadership skill
Communication is an essential part of everyday life. The average person speaks up to 16,000 words every day! [1] That’s a lot of words, so it can be a big challenge to get them all right.
Some people are naturally better at communicating than others and some more experienced. If we are good at talking, however, we shouldn’t be fooled into believing that we are good at communicating. Likewise, if we happen to be quiet, that doesn’t mean we are bad communicators.
Everything we do in life, and at work, communicates a message to others. And in a leadership role, it is important to make sure we are communicating the right message. Effective communication is therefore one of the most important leadership skills.
Most of us have probably heard this saying:
“It’s not what we say but how we say it.”
This can be true; as effective communicators, however, we should understand that:
“It is what we say and how, when, where and why we say it.”
What, how, when, where and why we communicate is the difference between negative and positive interactions, situations, outcomes and relationships. It can be the key difference between being a poor leader and an exceptional leader.
Having the skills to communicate effectively is one of the keys to leading people effectively.
Effective communication is a very challenging and complex process as there is always the potential for misunderstanding.
Let’s consider the question asked in the work place scenario below. Cai is applying the finishing touches to a product display stand when she is approached by her team leader, Anya...
Fig 1-1: A Seemingly Straightforward Question
The question “Who made that decision?” seems like a straightforward question, however depending on who asked it, how they asked it, who was asked and under what circumstances it was asked there could be any number of surprising responses (either spoken or thought), such as:
“Oh that’d be right – I’ve slaved over this for hours all by myself and only now you decide to come down here and get involved!”
or
“I did and if it’s not perfect I don’t have time to fix it; I have much more important things to be doing!”
What if the full question asked by Anya was:
“Who made that decision - it looks fantastic! What a great idea!”
If Anya had communicated her thoughts in this way, it is likely that she would have received a much more positive response from Cai.
This example demonstrates that communication can be very challenging, which is exactly why, in order to be effective leaders, we need to learn how to communicate effectively.
So where do we start?
There are many, many facets to effective communication, such as using and interpreting body language, receiving criticism positively, assertive communication and managing communication barriers, just to name a few.
As a starting point, here are three of the most important effective communication skills to consider:
1: Consider their perspective
2: Constructive Reframes
3: Effective listening
1. Consider their perspective
Effective communication is not all about us and it’s not just about communicating our message; it is also about understanding the intended meaning of the other person’s message.
Our communication objective is ‘to achieve mutual respect and understanding’.
This means that when we are communicating with someone, we need to make a conscious effort to consider the message they are communicating to us (both verbally and non-verbally) from their perspective. If we take the information we are receiving and consider it in terms of:
- what is important to them
- what their needs are
- what their preferred way of communicating is
- how they are feeling, and
- what their circumstances are
… we stand a much better chance of achieving our communication objective, ‘mutual respect and understanding.
2. Effective listening
Listening is arguably the most essential skill for effective communication and is a far more difficult process than just hearing the words someone is saying.
Effective listening involves focusing our ears, eyes and minds on the speaker and the mix of verbal and non-verbal (body language) messages they are delivering to us in order to gain a true understanding of the point they are trying to convey.
We need to:
- block out the thoughts that are flowing through our minds (including what we plan to say next)
- ignore the external activity that may be taking place around us
… and focus on listening. Otherwise we are likely to miss a key signal that could help us to understand their message completely.
3. Constructive Reframes
Learning to communicate positively and constructively will almost always lead to improved outcomes. To help us make our sentences more positive and constructive, we can use Constructive Reframes. Constructive Reframes simply involve removing negative words in a sentence and adding positive words.
Let’s consider the following negative sentence as an example:
“This report is rubbish”.
If we were to use a Constructive Reframe, we could instead say:
“There are some areas of this report that could be improved”.
Although we are still delivering the same general message, the constructive sentence is much easier for the other person to accept. It is therefore more likely that they will listen to our message rather than feel attacked and become defensive.
Although we are only touching the surface here, using these three communication elements - consider their perspective, effective listening and Constructive Reframes - will immediately lead to improved communication outcomes and is a great starting point for developing effective communication skills and becoming a better leader.
[1] Mehl, R., Vazire, S., Ramirez-Esparza, N., Slatcher, R.B. & Pennebaker, J.W. 2007. Are Women Really More Talkative Than Men? Science, 317 (5834): 82.
© Leader3 2010
