Building Essential Leadership Communication Skills
Being an effective leader goes hand in hand with having good communication skills. No matter what leadership role you play, communicating well is crucial for success and dramatically impacts your team’s ability to achieve goals.
Thankfully communication is a leadership skill to be learned with proper guidance. In my work as a leadership coach, building communication skills is a common focus area because it’s crucial to success.
Learning how to improve your communication skills as a leader requires you to understand different leadership communication styles and methods for communicating and how to use each effectively.
Why is Communication Important in Leadership
Just how necessary are effective communication skills for leaders? Respondents in a study from The Economist said that poor communication leads to:
failure to complete projects
low morale & higher stress levels
missed performance goals
lost sales
Overall, miscommunication can cost a business an annual average of $26,041 per employee, according to research by Holmes. That can add up quickly, especially if leadership struggles to communicate effectively with employees, costing a business hundreds of thousands in a single year.
In your role as a leader, you’ve probably seen the effects of miscommunication firsthand when you couldn’t communicate your point clearly. It’s not only a frustrating experience, but it can feel like you’re failing at being a leader in your team.
If effective leadership communication is crucial, what exactly does the learning process look like, and how can we start improving leadership communication skills? Can leaders learn how to communicate more effectively to prevent these kinds of problems?
Characteristics of Effective Communication
Leadership coaching often focuses on developing foundational communication skills as one of the most important skills to learn. Building communication skills is an essential personal development goal for leaders who want to succeed because it’s a universal skill regardless of industry or position.
The first step to improve your leadership communication skills is understanding what makes communication successful.
Successful communication is the ability to express ideas, concerns, and information, so the listener understands the intention. Characteristics of effective communication include:
Uses active listening
Maintains eye contact
Creates empathy
Encourages flexibility & creativity
Inspires & motivates
Is direct, clear & concise
Builds trust & understanding
Effective communication from your team helps you achieve goals and become a better leader. Leaders need to understand that communication is not just from the top down. To be a successful communicator, you also have to encourage your team to communicate with you, so information flows both ways.
How to Improve Your Communication Skills As a Leader
Communication is one of the foundation skills of influential leaders so it’s no surprise that I spend a lot of time on this topic in my one-on-one coaching sessions with new leaders. One of the most common questions for new leaders is exactly how do you develop these communication skills?
Improving your communication skills in your leadership role takes time and patience, and there are ways you can start improving your skills right now. Each one of these effective leadership communication strategies can help you become a better leader.
IDENTIFY YOUR TEAM’S COMMUNICATION STYLES
Every person on your team likely uses a different communication style. Learning how individual team members communicate best can go a long way to more effectively communicating with them.
What kinds of details do your team members want to know?
What sort of information motivates them?
What is their preferred method of communication?
Answering these three questions can make an impact on how you communicate with your team almost immediately. It’s one of the first things I recommend to my coaching clients to help them start effectively communicating faster.
BE SIMPLE AND DIRECT
Say what you mean and mean what you say. Be direct with your team members about what you want or need. Simple communication is smart communication, so there is no need to hide behind complex words or sentences, especially when you’re starting a difficult conversation.
What is the purpose of your communication?
How can I communicate that purpose as efficiently as possible?
What words am I using to soften the intention that may cloud it?
Not only will being more direct help you communicate more effectively, but you’ll also be more efficient with your time as a leader. Get straight to the point, so you leave little room for interpretation and misunderstandings.
PAY ATTENTION TO BODY LANGUAGE
A good leader knows communication goes way beyond words. Your body language means everything when it comes to building trust with other team members.
Make eye contact while talking and listening
Invite openness with a relaxed posture and uncrossed arms
Be aware of your facial expressions
If team members hear one thing and see another, they may lose trust in you. People need clear messages from you even when you aren’t saying anything.
GIVE ACTIONABLE FEEDBACK
New leaders often struggle to deliver actionable feedback to team members. Using effective feedback methods to communicate desired outcomes can go a long way to get the results you need.
Be direct and clear on how to move forward
Ask about concerns or resources they need
Encourage suggestions and feedback
When you communicate feedback as actionable, even negative feedback can be positive and improve your team.
ASK MEANINGFUL QUESTIONS
The type of questions you ask as a leader can drive good ideas and communication. Take time to learn how you ask questions and if the questions you are asking are valuable and meaningful to the listener and the organization.
Invite feedback from team members with questions
Use open-ended questions to increase communication
Be mindful of how you steer conversations
Questions should open the conversation to your team member, not get them to say what you want them to say. Leading questions can shut down communication and increase confusion.
PRACTICE LISTENING
Part of being an excellent communicator is being an excellent listener. When you listen, you gain a clear understanding of what your team members are saying and not saying. Active listening is key to this.
Be aware of eye contact, head nods, and non-verbal cues
Remember to allow your team member to communicate their entire point
Follow with constructive questions or actionable feedback
The better you are at listening, the more equipped you will be at responding and correcting miscommunication as it happens.
PRACTICE BEING AUTHENTIC
One of the most challenging leadership skills is to learn how to be authentic with your team. Authenticity goes a long way, and it can be hard to know how authentic you should be while staying professional. Being overly stern or formal can make being a coach to your team more difficult too.
Be honest and sincere
Avoid confusing or unnecessary corporate jargon
Be responsive to feedback from team members
People will want to respect you and follow you if they see how honest and approachable you are. Authenticity is one of the hardest communication skills to master but is well worth the effort.
Take the Next Step Towards More Effective Leadership
One thing to keep in mind is that the key to leading through effective communication is putting skills into practice and constantly developing those skills. No matter how long you’ve been a leader, working to improve your communication skills is a lifelong experience.
If you’ve never had the training to be an effective leader and communicator, it can feel overwhelming to be in a new leadership position without the tools to navigate your new role. The good news is that communication skills can be developed and learned with the right knowledge and techniques.
It all comes down to raising your self-awareness of your communication style and how you can start communicating better with others.
Sometimes we struggle to see ourselves clearly and how we communicate with others. If you’re ready to take your leadership skills to the next level, working with a leadership coach might be a solution to gain self-awareness and develop new skills.
Let’s talk about developing your communications skills and becoming a better leader.