Setting Up Communication for Success

A Positive Leader must be a skilled and effective communicator in order to actually lead others. After all, what is leadership without communication? Without any communication, there is no influence being shared. Without influence, there is no actual leading.

The best leaders are those who communicate and guide others the most effectively.

Step one to successful communication is to acknowledge and accept ownership for this immense responsibility. Then, they have to follow through put forth extensive effort into developing this highly contextual skill. Effective communication requires having enough wisdom and insight to correctly assess the situation, communicate well, and then ensure what was communicated was heard. That takes a lot of time and effort, and is a skill progression that has no end. There is always opportunity to improve.

Communication is possibly one of the most situational skills required for a leader to have. A collaborative meeting amongst subject matter experts has to be handled very differently than training someone new to their responsibilities. Developing this skill takes time, patience, iteration, and working through many failures. When failures happen, a leader must own up to those failures, learn from them, and try again.

The Three Pieces of Communication

Effective communication comes in three parts, all requiring a unique handling based on the audience, context, gravity, and goals of the outcome.

1. Set up
2. Sharing
3. Confirmation

Communication fails when just one of these steps falters. The set up can be perfect and the information relayed can be thorough, articulate, and poetic, but without proper confirmation at the end, everything else was wasted. It is a high responsibility with some harsh standards to achieve, and one a leader needs to accept. Each step has layers and nuance to it, and this is where the leader’s wisdom must approach each step with intentionality and care.

Set Up

1. Understand the audience and what matters to them
2. Shape the environment for positive reception
3. Build connection that supports open feedback and collaboration

During the set up, leaders must understand who they are talking to and what matters to them. After understanding the audience, Positive Leaders create an environment to ensure a positive reception. Finally, leaders need to proactively build a connection that supports open feedback and active collaboration. The set up stage is often overlooked, which creates situations where a strong message can fall on deaf ears because it was the wrong audience, the setting was completely inappropriate, or the people receiving didn’t have any confidence in the person sharing. Without the right set up, everyone’s time is wasted.

Sharing

1. Present the goals, vision, why, destination
2. Share with structure and simplicity
3. Speak in a manner that is uplifting, constructive, and solution focused

When it is time to share, the best starting point is focusing on the goals, vision, or why. This opening context is critical for getting everyone on the same starting point and all oriented in a shared direction. Then the core of the message has to be conveyed with intentional structure in as much simplicity as possible for the audience and situation. How the message is conveyed matters just as much as the words themselves. Disrespect or anger causes others to close down and disregard with what is said, but a calm and positive demeanor can diffuse a tense situation and build bridges. Good communication needs to be productive, working towards that established goal. Keep the communication at or above a positive baseline, remaining constructive and continually oriented towards a solution.

Confirmation

1. Open the floor for feedback
2. Solicit confirmation
3. Repeat for emphasis

After sharing, confirmation is critical, but also the most highly contextual step. Sometimes, receiving a simple “yes” is more than enough, other times intense back and forth discussion is required. As much as possible, Positive Leaders need to proactively solicit feedback and discussion when context allows. When working as a team, an un-collaborative one-way communication is the quickest way to limit the team’s capabilities down to the skill of one person. A team must become greater than the sum of its parts through working together by sharing insights and unique perspectives. The job of a leader is to enable this during the feedback loop. Finally, when the consensus is clear, repetition can be used to ensure everyone is on the same page. That can look like a simple repetition at the end of a conversation, written documentation on the conclusion, or even regularly repeating the vision for the next year.

Communication is a Shared Responsibility

While effective communication does require all parties to accept responsibility for their portion, the act of sharing outward to others demands greater skill, intentionality, and effort than receiving. Therefore, the person giving carries the greater share of responsibility.

This responsibility is magnified when the person communicating is in a position of leadership. The effectiveness of a leader has immense sway over the success or failure of a team, so leaders must hold themselves to a high standard when communicating, and the same standard when receiving.

When Positive Leaders are in a position to listen, they must afford others as much respect as they expect when sharing. This is a classic instance of leading by example through action rather than words. Genuinely care about the opinions and perspectives of others to create a highly effective and collaborative team. A leader who consistently listens well, accepts the same responsibility as the team and shows how the team should listen will succeed. A leader who fails to listen, intentionally or unintentionally, will undermine the entire team.

Keep Learning How to Communicate

In all of this, a Positive Leader must look intensely at themselves in the mirror. Blind spots cripple effective leadership as they think they’re helping, but they are holding back the team due to something as simple as missed deliverables or full on crippling the team with toxicity. Seek out help and feedback from trusted advisors and never reject that feedback out of hand.

Never stop improving in communication and always strive to live with humility as we are all works in progress.