The art of effective communication is what makes leadership magical. Charisma derives from a leader’s ability to inspire and empower others. A key component of leadership is the ability to create a vision and to clearly convey that vision to the team. Effective communication is influential in both personal and professional life. Communication is the building block for relationships; without effective comminution skills, it may be hard to foster productive relationships.
Leaders who are uncomfortable in expressing their ideas due to limited communication skills, risk the possibility that their ideas will not be implemented to their full potential. Effective communication by company management will help clarify the company’s direction and vision to employees, this will make them feel more secure within their role and ensure buy-in for the shared vision.
Communicating to people at a level that is compatible with their mental capacity may be common sense. Factors that may interfere with effective communication are:
- Misinterpretation of messages due to imperfect perceptual processing of both sender and receiver which may be due to the use of a different language, jargon, and ambiguous phrases.
- Information overload is a process in which the volume of information received exceeds the person’s capacity to process it.
To increase the probability that your message is received by the other person try to:
- Empathize with the receiver, by being sensitive to his or her needs. Avoid words that may be obscure your message or may elicit a negative response.
- Repeat the message by rephrasing the key points.
- Find the right time to get your message across to minimize “noise”.
- Be descriptive rather than evaluative and focus on the problem, not the person. (McShane, 2015)
We find that effective communication becomes even more magical if our children are involved. Children have a way of inspiring us to be creative. Effective communication with my toddler usually means brushing our teeth before bedtime after saying, “Let’s make our teeth shine”; or it could be the bath song and getting the ducks involved in the bath party!
Several leadership models consider effective communication to be an essential component. For example, social performance is one of the components of the competencies in the skill-based model of Mumford’s group. It is listed under social judgment skills and involves a wide range of leadership competencies including effective communication. Northouse points out that “leaders need to be able to communicate their own vision to others” and that “Skill in persuasion and communicating change is essential to do this.” (Northhouse, 2016). Communication is also a significant component of the human skill element of the three-skill approach of leadership.
How might you incorporate these insights into your everyday communication?
References
McShane, S. V. (2015). Organizational behavior. New York: McGraw-hills Education.
Northhouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership. Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: London.
