How to communicate effectively to your team

Communication is a critical part of our daily life. Some people are by nature more gifted at communicating than others. Good talking however has nothing to do with good communication. Quietness on the other hand does not mean that one is a bad communicator.

Everything you do communicates something. In a leadership role, it is imperative that you communicate the right message. Effective communication is thus a very important leadership skill as the age old saying, “it is not what you say but how you say it,” reiterates. The difference between positive and negative interactions, situations, results and relationships is defined by what, how, when, where and why we communicate. Communication does make the difference between a poor leader and an exceptional one. Having effective communication skills is one of the keys to effective leadership.

The potential of misunderstanding often makes effective communication a considerable challenge as well as a complex process. There are many aspects of effective communication which involves the use and interpretation of body language, positively receiving criticism, assertive communication and managing barriers to communication.

There are three important elements of communication that you need to consider learning and perfecting if you are to be an effective leader to your group.

1. Your listeners’ perspective

Effective communication is never about you or just about putting forward your message. It is also about realizing the intended meaning of the other party’s message. The objective of your communication should be to achieve a mutual respect and understanding. This means that when you are communicating to your team, you need to make a deliberate effort to consider the message that your team is communicating back to you.

When you consider the information you are receiving from your team in terms of what is important to them, their needs, their preferred way of communicating, feelings and circumstances, then you will be in a better position of achieving your communication objective.

2. Your listening skills

Listening is a very critical skill in effective communication. It goes beyond hearing what is coming out of the other party’s mouth.

Effective listening entails devoting your ears, eye and mind on the speaker as well as interpreting the mix of both verbal and non-verbal signals that they are conveying to you. This helps you understand completely what they are communicating to you.

3. You ability to use constructive reframes

Positive and constructive communication usually leads to improved outcomes. Using constructive reframes can help you make statements more positive and constructive.

Constructive reframes has to do with taking away negative words and in their place putting positive ones. A statement like “this report is useless” can be reframed to sound something like “an improvement can be done to some parts of this report to make it better”

Constructive statements encourage your team to listen to your message rather than feeling attacked and becoming defensive.

Adopting and practicing these elements of communication can effectively lead to improvement in communication outcomes. This is a great point to start developing effective communication skills while on your way to becoming a great leader that you can be.