As a leader, effective communication is critical to supply details about the mission and vision of what you are trying to carry out. However, it is also essential to motivate, inspire and manage relationships to move team and stakeholders in the desired direction.
When leading, the focus is always on us. Everything we say and do is being studied, for better or for worse. Accept both the honour and challenge of being given a team to lead. It is crucial to remember that what we do both on and off the “battleground” effects our ability to lead. Words and actions become habits. These habits contribute to defining our character. Leadership is a privilege that you earn daily.
Communication is significantly more than the words we say. As leaders, it is all about how we articulate what we want our team to “hear.” Effective communication needs emotional intelligence, knowing your audience and active listening.
Here are five insights to remember when communicating with your team.
Ask Good Questions
Some of the most exceptional advice I have ever received was merely about asking the right questions to foster constructive and intelligent communication between the team. As leaders, one of the greatest privileges you have is building a talented team. Hopefully, one made up of people much smarter and more capable than us! Moreover, if that is the case, why would you spend all of your time giving directives and assuming you know more than anyone in the room. By guiding a discussion with a specific goal in mind, you carry out much more by using the talent surrounding us.
The Benefit of Asking Questions
According to a recent study conducted by the Harvard Business School, asking questions in the workplace may cause others to view you as more engaged and intelligent. Although some may fear retribution, appear incompetent, or seen as annoying, an inquisitive nature is often a sign of competence.
Information sharing is very important in organizations. If everyone sat in their separate silos and never interacted with each other, they wouldn’t learn anything from each other. By not seeking advice, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to learn from your co-workers,” Alison Wood Brooks, Harvard
This effect is even stronger among people who feel powerful, Professor Gino found in another study.
People who feel powerful tend to resist the advice of others, because they experience the advice as a threat to their own claim to power and feel competitive with their advisers.” Francesca Gino, Harvard
Although a fair amount of research about how people respond to advice has been published, much less has been done on seeking learning feedback. People commonly believe that asking for help is inconsiderate — we don’t want to bother others. However, the findings suggest that unless you are feeling anxious, there is very little to lose if you seek advice. Being asked for advice is flattering. Asking someone to share his or her personal wisdom, advice seekers stroke the adviser’s ego and can gain valuable insights.
When you are asking questions, people do not think less of you — they actually think you’re smarter.
Excerpt from - Secrets to Excel As A Leader — Asking Questions and Seeking Help
Stay Calm And Be Positive
Calm is contagious. Moreover, so is panic. Smile. Carry yourself with confidence. So try not to wear your emotions on your sleeve. Be aware that effective communication is about seven percent of the words we speak, and the rest is about your delivery, tone, and body language.
In leadership, relationships are the most crucial factor
Positive psychology requires frequent communication between employees and you. I recommend weekly scheduled checking. This approach helps team members feel valued. You are creating a safe, productive, and friendly environment. There is nothing more potent than regular positive and constructive two-way communication.
To Manage People Better — Understand Human Behaviours
When I look at the world, I'm pessimistic, but when I look at people, I am optimistic." — Carl Rogers
If you are trying to know how to be a better boss, you first need to understand human behaviour. Understand where your team members are coming from and why they do what they do, enables you to empathize and communicate effectively.
A working grasp of the concepts of positive psychology provides you with the tools you need to manage people more effectively. You will:
- reduce turnover
- boost productivity
- better understand your team’s needs and know how to support them
- be able to develop each employee individually, helping them to feel valued, empowered, and fulfilled
Moreover, you will be able to create a sense of loyalty and camaraderie among your team. This support leads to business growth and success. Positive psychology can be the key to effective communication and better leadership!
We offer a behavioural competencies model — the ladder of leadership — for every level of leadership. Understanding the essential ten competencies needed for success is critical. You will understand your natural strengths that to need to use and know the other areas that you will need to develop strategies to manage.
Excerpt from — How Positive Psychology Makes You A Better Boss
Speak Less, Listen More
By asking the right questions, you will be actively listening to those speaking. However, we often find ourselves in the bad habit of thinking about what we are going to say when we get a chance to talk, as opposed to listening to the other people talking. When we do that, we are not genuinely engaged in the conversation. Leadership is not about shouting orders.
Interestingly, the less we talk, the more we will learn from the folks around us. Observe who speaks at the meeting — wise people listen more and speak less.
Active Listening is a Leadership Responsibility
If you listen to your employees, you are in a much better position to lead the diverse and multigenerational workforce. The “one-approach-fits-all” way of thinking is outdated. Embracing active listening makes you a better and more compassionate leader.
Leaders who listen create trustworthy relationships that are transparent and breed loyalty. You have your employees’ best interests at heart because you listen to them. Here are a few statistics that will make you think about the importance of active listening:
- 85% of what we know we have learned through listening
- Humans generally listen at a 25% comprehension rate
- In a typical business day, we spend 45% of our time listening, 30% of our time talking, 16% reading and 9% writing
- Fewer than 2% of professionals have had formal training to improve their listening skills and techniques
As a leader, take the time to listen to your employees. It is difficult to know what they are thinking about, what is troubling them or how to help them get out of a performance slump. Active listening goes well beyond being quiet and giving someone your full attention. It requires you to be aware of body language, facial expressions, mood, and natural behavioural tendencies. Active listening is a full-time job.
As a leader, you must balance your intensity and desire to perform with compassionate attention to your employees’ needs. Boost your emotional intelligence — be mindful of another’s stress and their tension points before they impact the business.
Excerpt — How to be a Leader of Influence — Active Listening
You Need to Be present
As leaders, executives, or entrepreneurs, we generally have days with little to no downtime. We hurry from meeting to meeting to conference calls. We are rarely taking the time to clear our heads and reset for the next item on our agenda. Most studies show that humans are genuinely productive for just a few minutes each hour. The unproductivity is mainly due to distractions. These opportunities occur whether you are chatting with a colleague in the lunchroom, during a client call with other team members or running a company meeting, be actively present in the moment. Be engaged with your audience — no matter how trivial you think the conversation may be. That way they know will know that you care. Also, you will uncover valuable insights.
Lucky people stroll along with their eyes wide open
It makes sense. The more observant you are of your surroundings, the more likely you are to capture a valuable resource or avoid tragedy. Lucky people don’t magically attract new opportunities and good fortune. They stroll along with their eyes wide open, fully present in the moment (a problem for people glued to phone screens). This also means that anything that affects our physical or emotional ability to take in our environment also affects our so-called “luckiness”—anxiety, for one. Anxiety physically and emotionally closes us off to chance opportunities.
“If you’re anxious that you won’t find a parking place, then literally your vision narrows,” says Christine Carter, a sociologist and senior fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. “You lose your peripheral vision the more anxious you are because your flight-or-fight mechanism creates binocular vision.” Anxious people bias their attention to potential threats and are predictably less likely to converse with strangers. “We teach our kids not to talk to strangers, and we teach them to fear other people, and that shuts them down to the opportunities that people might bring, but also creates anxiety,” says Carter.
Proponents of “stranger danger” might balk, but the idea is relatively straightforward: reduce kids’ fear and anxiety toward meeting new people, and consequently open them up to the advantageous connections that people can bring.
Carter discovered that simply opening up parents’ minds this way to the idea that luck could be learned made a big difference. Carter herself admits she comes from a long line of anxious women, and learning these luck skills wasn’t easy. But once you do, she says, you can begin to see the good in unlucky situations, which can improve your response to misfortune.
Excerpt — How to be Remarkably Lucky – Have an Open Mind
Work On Emotional Intelligence — Power Skills
This subject requires more than a few paragraphs. However, it is worth mentioning because most people overlook or think is it an unnecessary quality. Many see emotional intelligence as a softer-side leadership quality. They are wrong. It is imperative. Staying calm under pressure, being self-aware, empathetic, and disciplined are all aspects of emotional intelligence that improve your leadership ability. These emotional competencies are not innate talents. All elements are capabilities that you learn. They must be worked on and developed over time. So, get on it!
Data Show the Value of Power Skills
An internal study at Google looked across teams to determine the most innovative and productive units within the company. They found that their best groups were not the ones full of top engineers. They discovered that their highest performing teams were interdisciplinary groups. These groups benefited heavily from employees who brought strong power skills to the collaborative process. The critical predictors of success within Google are excellent communication, insights about others, and empathetic leadership. However, all companies that are finding value in these skills.
People see teamwork and collaboration as the most helpful power skills in the workplace, followed by critical thinking, public speaking, and persuasive writing.
The Value of Power Skills
It is a challenge to gain power skills in today’s fast-paced corporate environment. Formal education does not typically teach power skills as a hybrid skillset with other “hard” abilities. Students discover that they are on one segmented pathway or another. For instance, computer science disciplines that tend to focus solely on programming and hard skills; or liberal arts curricula that foster critical thinking and creativity, however, often leave graduates with non-linear career-paths.
For remarkable results, I advocate combining engineering, liberal arts, and the humanities. This approach is not well received by many of my engineering colleagues, who favour a more specialized/expert education. We need great engineers who are subject matter experts. However, embracing both those who go deep and those who go broad is good for society.
