Effective communication skills are critical for managers, especially for contemporary leaders. Given today’s workplaces are more complex, the ability to articulate a vision, secure buy-in, and offer feedback to a team is important. After all, these actions affect team morale and the company’s success.
Yet, not all managers are endowed with these skills. Even those who are proficient today can face communication challenges as the demographics of employees change. Consequently, there is a need to improve communication skills, both spoken and written.
In this article, we will explore the importance of effective communication skills for managers. We’ll also examine common communication obstacles that managers may encounter and offer practical recommendations for improving communication skills.
By implementing these, you can augment your capacity to communicate effectively with your teams, establish strong relationships, and achieve organizational goals.
What’s your communication mastery level?
Take the quiz here and get actionable insights to improve your communication skills.
Understanding the Importance of Good Communication Skills for Managers
People seek to be heard and understood, which will only be possible if parties in the workplace both share ideas clearly and also listen to others. Communication is a two-way street and with that, managers can foster trust easily.
Trust is Essential
Leaders often ponder how authentic or transparent they should be as they communicate. Gallup statistics show that “only 7% of U.S. workers strongly agree that communication is accurate, timely, and open where they work.” In disruptive times, keeping people informed becomes even more important. This is congruent with our findings in the Leaders People Love Global Survey.
- 57.4% of participants want leaders to unpack strategies and policies clearly; and
- 57.1% want leaders to inspire a compelling shared vision
What do employees want from their managers and organizations?
Find out here. Download the Leaders People Love Global Survey report.
Further research revealed that when communication is not enough or unclear, trust is broken and it can even be a driving force in employees’ decisions to leave the company.
Related Post:
10 Signs of a Toxic Work Environment and How to Fix It
7 Essential Communication Skills for Effective Leadership
Good communication skills can be developed at your own pace, one step at a time. In doing so, not only will you benefit, but those around you will also recognize and value the positive impact.
With effective workplace communication, you will establish more authentic and trusting connections. It enables you to give critical and constructive feedback. Your feedback can help teams improve and handle conflicts effortlessly.
1. Interpersonal Communication Skills
Interpersonal communication skills are behaviors that facilitate effective interaction with others.
For managers, good interpersonal communication skills can create an environment that is motivating. Not only that, but also encourages collaboration, open dialogue, and team building.
This goes beyond just giving instructions and receiving work updates. It’s about actively listening to understand people’s perspectives. Showing empathy for their challenges, and providing clear and constructive feedback. Which helps them develop eventually as they learn from it.
It’s also about celebrating successes together and fostering a sense of camaraderie within the team.
Some pointers for you:
- Get to know your team and their interests.
- Be aware of diversity and preferences.
- Demonstrate care concern, and cultural sensitivity in the communication process.
2. Non-verbal Communication Skills
Excellent verbal and written communication and presentation skills are very crucial. These are some of the leadership skills you need to have. Improving your nonverbal communication (nonverbal signals, body language, eye contact, and facial expressions) to support your communication is necessary. It helps you develop more trust with people.
Think of nonverbal communication as the unspoken language that reinforces your spoken words. Maintaining eye contact while speaking shows you’re engaged and interested. An open posture conveys approachability and confidence.
A genuine smile fosters a positive and welcoming environment. When your nonverbal cues align with your verbal message, it creates a sense of authenticity. It strengthens the sincerity that builds trust with your team.
Some pointers for you:
- Ensure congruence and alignment between your verbal and nonverbal.
- Maintain eye contact to appropriately enhance communication.
- Engage the audience visually to retain their attention.
3. Listening Skills
We often overlook the importance of listening in communications. Many of us might assume presentation skills are the most important but don’t overlook the fact that great communication skills begin with listening. To build trust and rapport, leaders need to be active listeners.
Active listening involves truly paying attention to what others are saying. This includes both verbal and nonverbal. It’s also about asking clarifying questions to ensure understanding. Summarizing key points is also another good way to show that you’re engaged.
When you practice active listening, you demonstrate respect. You also show that you value the speaker’s thoughts and feelings. This creates a safe space for open communication and fosters a sense of trust and connection.
Some pointers for you:
- Seek to understand and ask clarifying questions.
- Paraphrase what you have heard to indicate that you are listening, increasing the sense of empathy.
- Listen without passing judgment or forcing your ideas or suggestions.
Listen to our podcast interview with Seetha Cristian, Transformation and Technology Leader, and her take on empathetic listening.
Listen to the episode here.
4. Leadership Storytelling Skills
Emotions naturally drive people. And stories have an unmatched capability of captivating far more than statistics or figures. Harnessing the power to craft a gripping narrative is an invaluable asset. It will help you get people on board, form strong relationships, and build trust.
Stories tap into our emotions in a way that dry facts and figures simply cannot. They allow us to connect with the speaker on a human level, understand their message more deeply, and feel invested in the outcome.
When you share a story about a past challenge the team overcame, you create a shared experience that fosters connection and trust. Other stories include team wins or even a relatable personal anecdote.
Effective storytelling is a powerful communication skill as it can be used for various purposes. For example, you can use stories to introduce new ideas, explain complex concepts, motivate your team, or even provide constructive feedback.
Weave a persuasive analogy or metaphor into your communication. It will make your message more memorable impactful, and ultimately, more persuasive.
Some pointers for you:
- Enhance the effectiveness of your fact-based sharing by leveraging leadership storytelling skills.
- Keep to one core idea per communication, as a confused audience indicates poor communication.
- Create a culture of trust by genuinely engaging and involving people through compelling stories.
Related Post:
8 Management Skills Every Leader Needs For An Agile Organization
Want to add leadership storytelling to elevate your communication effectiveness?
Check out our Leadership Storytelling course here.
5. Comprehension and Synthesis Skills
For any manager to be effective, strong synthesis capabilities are a must. Synthesis is the capacity to take complex information, break it down, and draw meaningful and new insights.
A McKinsey report found a strong link between employment and communication skills. This includes proficiency in synthesizing messages.
Managers need this skill set to analyze links between various data sets. This includes understanding sales figures, customer feedback, and employee performance data.
Without synthesis, they might see these as isolated pieces of information. However, with strong synthesis skills, they can identify trends. They can then easily pinpoint areas for improvement, and make optimized data-driven decisions.
The ability to synthesize information is also crucial for recognizing emerging issues. What’s next is to communicate your insights in a logical way.
Some pointers for you:
- Communicate something complex in a simple way.
- Reduce the use of jargon and fancy words in your presentations.
- Highlight the learning point and connections that the audience must get.
Our Leadership Storytelling – Get to Yes Global Online Course helps you simplify complex ideas. This enhances your communication effectiveness. Check out the course here for more information.
6. Affirmation Skills
In certain cultures, leaders might not feel comfortable about praising people. Too often, we underestimate the power of praising people who have put in the hard work.
A study from Gallup showed that managers who give strengths-focused feedback encourage people to perform better.
However, simply saying “good job” isn’t enough. Effective praise should be specific. Not only that, but also sincere, and focused on the employee’s strengths and contributions.
For example, instead of a generic “good work on the report,”. You could say, “I appreciate the way you incorporated all the feedback from the team into the final report, including everyone’s voices.““
Managers can foster a more positive and motivated work environment. They can do it by taking the time to recognize individual contributions and highlight strengths,
It shows employees their hard work is valued, which in turn leads to increased engagement, productivity, and a lower employee turnover.
Some pointers for you:
- Look out for what your team has done right and appreciate them.
- Praise them immediately. If not, maintain a record so you won’t forget the details.
- Be specific about your praise and let them know you see their efforts.
7. Communicating Concisely
Communicating clearly is one of the essential communication skills that managers need to have. You might think that goes without saying, but in our observation, it’s far too rare. We often encounter managers who lack such communication skills in our international practice. If your meeting feels endless, there’s probably a need for others to communicate more concisely.
One barrier is that leaders are clouded by their assumptions and assume others would understand what they mean. As the workplace becomes more diverse, leaders will find that assumptions can get in the way more often. The use of jargon, or overly complex sentence structures can also create confusion.
Instead, use simple language to communicate clearly. You must also tailor the message to the audience. At the highest level of communication mastery, you’ll convey powerful ideas with simple words.
Check your communication mastery level here.
Communicating clearly requires leaders to think more deeply so they can identify the key points they want to convey and choose their words wisely to achieve the intended impact.
This means taking the time to organize their thoughts, so for leaders who want to develop higher performance, the section on the STRATEGIST in Leaders People Love might appeal to you.
Some pointers for you:
- Write down the key points you want to communicate. Keep to just a few important ones.
- List down the possible objections, and think about how to overcome them
- State your assumptions about the listeners. For instance, what are their prior beliefs about what you will communicate? How will you close this gap?
Improve Your Communications with Leadership Storytelling
We offer leadership storytelling training under VISIONARY, one of the agile leadership pillars.
Unlike typical storytelling or public speaking training, leadership storytelling offers something different. It will give you the communication skills that will increase your impact and effectiveness as you communicate daily.
Leadership storytelling goes beyond just conveying messages. It significantly enhances personal relationships by building deeper connections and understanding.
Here are some of the numerous benefits you can expect from our Leadership Storytelling – Get to Yes training:
1. Clear and Concise Communication
Poor communication skills are one of the root causes of the conflicts that arise in the workplace.
When communication is precise, it helps to eliminate any uncertainty or confusion among your team members. It enables everyone to work together seamlessly.
In our leadership storytelling training, we show you how to select and sequence the content you want to deliver. And ensure that your audience understands the message.
You will be succinct yet articulate when conveying dense and fact-based information.
2. Build Trust, Rapport, and Connection
Trust is the single most important currency for change that all leaders need. Imagine trust as the lubricant – when there’s trust, much friction, and misunderstandings can be dissolved easily. Address the trust gap with leadership storytelling and pave the way for seamless collaboration.
3. Create an Authentic Leadership Brand with Compelling Stories
Stories are valuable in captivating your audience. In tugging at their emotions, you’ll guarantee that people will remember your message. When you build a trustworthy and authentic leadership brand, you’ll be most effective in inspiring your team to take action and follow you in times of crisis.
4. Persuade and Influence with Ease
One of the important communication skills is to influence and persuade. When leaders need to bring about change, they need to be able to motivate others to take action.
Persuasion and influence are, hence, irreplaceable assets in the workplace. A lack thereof can produce damaging consequences both to individuals within the team and to the company as a whole.
We show you how to leverage Leadership Storytelling to foster understanding, break down barriers, and ensure effective collaboration.
5. Speak like a Thought Leader
Some leaders are interested in enhancing their presence on the international stage. Leadership storytelling coupled with our 1-to-1 coaching will sharpen your communication skills. It will equip you with crucial tools for developing successful models of communication.
You will discover your best on-stage persona. Utilize nonverbal communication skills, and respond to difficult questions thoughtfully. All these abilities can help make you an even more effective communicator and persuasive leader.
Build trust faster, get buy-in and aligned action faster through our online course Leadership Storytelling – Get to Yes. This might just be the breakthrough you have been waiting for to improve your communication skills.
In conclusion, communicating effectively is an essential part of a manager’s role in the workplace. Develop the 7 key skills to foster trust and alignment, creating a healthy work environment of success.
It takes time to learn and practice these skills, but with dedication and patience, you can master them.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
Take advantage of Chuen Chuen’s extensive experience coaching leaders worldwide. Her deep expertise in designing agile leadership corporate training will benefit your teams. No matter which stage of leadership you are at, we’ll partner with you and meet your business needs.
Explore our executive coaching programs, and corporate training courses. You can also hire Chuen Chuen as your speaker at events so that your organization will become agile, adaptive, and future-resilient.