Why is communication important for leaders?
Leadership is the process through which an individual influences a group of people to achieve a common goal. Leaders inspire and motivate.
How do they do it? Mainly through communication.
Effective communication boosts morale and engagement, builds trust, and facilitates teamwork.
On the contrary, inadequate communication causes misunderstandings, conflict, and deteriorates relationships. It negatively impacts a team’s performance.
The Economist Intelligence Unit reported that ineffective communication can result in diminished morale, failure to achieve performance targets, and potential revenue loss.
Another study revealed that poor communication could incur an average yearly cost of $64.2 million for large corporations, while small businesses risk a yearly loss of $420,000.
What are the most important communication skills for leaders?
- Active listening
Effective leaders need to listen to their team members to understand their needs, ideas, and opinions.
Active listening means posing questions, paying attention to the other person without getting distracted, and summarizing the main points.
When you listen to someone, you make the other person feel valuable. You increase engagement.
- Clarity
Great leaders set clear goals and indicate how to achieve them.
Ambiguity is detrimental. Team members do not know what to do or why. Everyone interprets things differently. It causes confusion.
- Adapting your communication style
Everyone has different personalities and communication styles. Some people may be dominant and aggressive, others passive and quiet, or assertive and balanced. Leaders should be able to identify these differences in people and adapt their communication styles to improve efficacy.
Leaders should communicate according to the context, interlocutor, and goal. Sometimes, you need to be diplomatic. Other times, you need to be more direct. There isn’t a perfect communication style in all situations. The more adaptable and in control of your communication you are the better.
- Empathy
Putting yourself in others’ shoes helps you create deep connections. When collaborators’ feelings are recognized, they feel heard and valued by their leaders.
- Body language
Gestures, postures, and facial expressions greatly impact how your message is received and interpreted.
Leaders should be able to control their nonverbal communication, as well as observe and interpret others’ body language.
For example, if you want to build trust, open body language is recommended.
- Influence principles
Leaders influence people’s behaviors and motivation. Therefore, being knowledgeable about influence and persuasive communication principles is fundamental.
Professor Robert Cialdini has identified seven influence principles that leaders can use.
- Reciprocity—People feel obliged to give back to others what they have received first (e.g., favors, gifts, etc.).
- Scarcity—People want more of those things they can have less of, and consider precious what is scarce.
- Authority—People follow and tend to say yes to credible and skilled experts.
- Consistency—People like to be consistent with what they have previously said or done to protect their social image.
- Liking—People prefer to say yes to those they like (e.g., friends, good-looking people, individuals they share similarities with).
- Social proof—People tend to look at others’ behaviors to choose what to do, especially in uncertain conditions.
- Unity— People are more heavily influenced by members of their groups.
- Giving and receiving feedback
The ability to ask for feedback and provide constructive feedback is paramount for leaders.
Feedback helps people realize what they are doing well, things to change, their strengths and areas of improvement.
It helps people align to a common goal, correct mistakes, and improve performance.
Do you want to improve the communication skills in your company?
As an organizational psychologist with over 14 years of experience in soft skills training, I can help leaders and their teams develop their communication skills.
Effective communication in the workplace increases productivity and well-being, reduces costs due to mistakes and misunderstandings, and augments the bottom line.
Andrea Miriello
Business and organizational psychologist
Sources:
Debra Hamilton, “Top Ten Email Blunders That Cost Companies Money,” Creative Communications & Training, 2010.
David Grossman, “The Cost of Poor Communications,” The Holmes Report, July17, 2011.
SHRM, The Cost of Poor Communication, 2016, https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/organizational-employee-development/cost-poor-communication
The Economist, Communication barriers in the modern workplace, 2018, https://impact.economist.com/perspectives/sites/default/files/EIU_Lucidchart-Communication%20barriers%20in%20the%20modern%20workplace.pdf