When communicating with your team, how a leader conveys intent matters!
Communication is one of a leaders’ best skills to master when guiding a team toward success. It is a tool a leader uses every day when setting goals and expectations, coaching up performance, recognizing others, promoting change and progress, building relationships and teamwork, and building cohesiveness and connectivity with everyone on the team. It seems simple, doesn’t it?
No, it can be very difficult.
Non-ATI members: Do you understand the best ways to phrase feedback and requests in a positive light? Start with ATI’s Common Negative Words and Phrases Worksheet.
Communication Consistently
Start by becoming a better communicator with your team. A leader starts with team meetings (suggested weekly) and one-on-one fifteen-minute sessions (suggested weekly) with each team member. In these meetings, you clarify the vision, the mission, and progress to achieve individual and business goals. It can be hard to do! But imagine a group of workers that know where they are, where they are going, and how to get there—all with you as their guide along the journey. What will that be like in your business? Amazing, right?
Commitment to communicating with consistency is how a leader can begin doing their role in the business. Assist others in reaching their potential and accomplishing the business goals. Observe and offer feedback that moves others toward personal betterment and the betterment of the business.
How You Communicate
As a leader, you must be careful how you say what you are trying to convey to others. Unfortunately, people surround themselves with eggshells making true and honest feedback difficult when not delivered properly.
Being the leader, you never want to demotivate or throw a wet towel over someone’s head when coaching the workers on your team. Communicating to build up and show love for a team involves the following: do your work properly and consistently, be kind, be patient, be honest, be encouraging, say “sorry” when necessary, readily forgive when appropriate, and say thank you. Great leaders think through information delivery and how that information will impact others.
Phrases to Avoid
A few choice phrases are negative and detrimental to what you are working towards when conversing with others.
- “Because I said so…”
- “I wish you would work like…”
- “Can’t you do anything right…”
- “You will never learn…”
- “Why can’t you just do what I told you to do…”
Your Communication Strategy
Think before you speak; plan the dialogue in advance when preparing for meetings and one-on-ones. Be careful to phrase feedback in a positive light—build up, not tear down. Remember, you can turn all negatives into a positive format for delivery.
Do you use positive, relationship-building language when communicating with your team? First, download ATI’s Common Negative Words and Phrases Worksheet to better understand the “no-no” language. Then practice rephrasing in a positive light, and keep growing and developing yourself and your team!