It’s unfortunate but true: The way you communicate can cause your employees to quake. Vocal variations — tone, pitch, cadence, and inflection — inform a listener’s experience, affecting his or her interpretation up to 38%. You might say one thing, but the other person will hear something totally different.
Leaders who don’t check their own emotions have probably caused undue fear, disappointment or anxiety in their employees. I’m as much at fault as the next boss. I used to believe I was fairly cool, calm and collected, but I didn’t realize how often I responded emotionally. My feelings would sneak into my conversations because I was unconscious of my driving emotion: fear.
Fear pervades the working world. Three out of four businesses disappear before they hit the 10-year mark, and this terrifies the managers of young companies. Individual leaders fear failure, criticism and being seen as an imposter. These anxieties are very real, but they aren’t burdens to be passed along to personnel. No one deserves to be afraid, especially when the fear stems from poor leadership communication skills.
How to Avoid Miscommunication in the Workplace
Supervisors need to check their feelings at the door and practice emotional intelligence by learning how to improve communication at work. I might be having a bad morning, but I can’t let my bad day rub off onto other people. Rather, I owe it to others and to myself to be a conscientious messenger and focus on effective leadership communication, whether I’m talking to a single person or a crowd of hundreds.
Messages can go awry in three ways: misunderstandings, miscommunications and misinterpretations. The first indirectly places fault on the listener, the second blames the speaker, but the third holds all parties accountable.
As a leader, you want to avoid miscommunications and misunderstandings at work. Don’t blame a single party. Instead, make each person responsible for how he or she delivers and receives messages. It’s easier to have a conversation about a misinterpreted message than an argument about a miscommunicated or misunderstood one.
How to Employ Effective Leadership Communication
Follow these steps for more effective leadership communication:
1. Deliver feedback with a smile.
Unless you’re deliberately trying to turn someone else’s stomach into a roiling, churning cauldron, avoid critiquing someone unless you can smile while doing it. Smiles convey and promote positivity. Of course, you don’t want to put on a fake grin, but mustering a soft smile can really help. My listener will hear constructive criticism if I explain in a friendly, albeit firm, tone, “You were late on this project.” Without a smile, they might interpret the same phrase as, “YOU WERE LATE ON THIS PROJECT.” The former case will drive receptiveness; the latter, terror.
Make no mistake: Smiles aren’t supposed to lessen the importance of what you’re saying. The goal is to show you want to help, not scare, the other person. You might be understandably mad, but wait until you’re calmer to deliver your feedback. Practicing effective leadership communication requires patience.
2. Pause and ask for responses.
During a lecture or meeting, take a verbal timeout every couple of minutes. Use the pause as an opportunity to ask others whether they understood what you meant. Don’t be hostile, just inquisitive. Asking, “Can you tell me what you heard just now?” will elicit responses to help you gauge whether you’re communicating your point.
What happens if someone heard something incorrectly? Backtrack by saying, “That wasn’t what I intended. Let me restate that.” Try not to be offended; you might have unwittingly set off a fight-or-flight response in that person’s amygdala. If they can’t seem to regroup or focus, you may want to revisit the discussion later after they work through their feelings.
3. Practice controlling the way your voice sounds.
Recording yourself speaking gives you tremendous insight into how you actually come across (which is why it’s a good way to improve communication skills at work). Yes, it can be stressful to analyze your communication patterns, but you’ll get better at using aural language aspects to your benefit.
Many people struggle with tics, such as using filler words like “um.” Other people habitually allow their sentences to rise in tone at the end. Both behaviors can cause unpleasant reactions in listeners, leaving the message unheard. Focus on making every speaking opportunity a little better than the last. This tip is especially important for leaders like me who often speak to tens of hundreds of people.
4. Record and transcribe important speeches.
Have a big board meeting next week? Giving a speech at an industry convention this quarter? Record yourself presenting and have the speech transcribed. Ask people you trust to listen to the speech or read the transcript. Find out whether they understand what you’re trying to tell them or whether they feel confused and put off.
The last thing you want is for your speech to fall flat because of a leadership communication problem you could have fixed. Gather feedback and tweak your final product accordingly so you can engage as many audience members as possible. This process is especially advantageous when you’re creating a speech that you plan to present multiple times.
Nailing the art and science of leadership communication isn’t a cut-and-dried deal. Like any skill, it takes practice. But the more work you put into learning how to improve communication at work, the more effective and efficient your conversations will be.
Bon courage!
Do you know someone who would be interested in reading about effective leadership communication styles? Share this blog post so that your bosses and teammates can avoid miscommunication at work in the future. And if you want to measure the impact of your own words, take my Talk SHIFT assessment.
Krister Ungerböck is the founder of the global Talk SHIFT movement. He’s a sought-after keynote speaker, award-winning CEO of a global tech company, executive coach, and author. He’s been featured in national publications such as NPR, Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur for his fresh perspective on leadership, emotional intelligence, and employee engagement.