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Become a Better Communicator with these 3 Lessons: 

Don’t get caught with your loqua­cious pants down. You have the vision, you have the strat­e­gy, you have the will, BUT do you have the right perspective?
 
On a dai­ly basis, you are tasked with mak­ing choic­es, some more dif­fi­cult than oth­ers, but impor­tant deci­sions nonethe­less. Moves with sig­nif­i­cant impact that can rip­ple through­out the orga­ni­za­tion if not the wider recep­tion of your busi­ness. As a thought leader, what you assert takes on a psy­cho­log­i­cal weight that will set the pace for group and indi­vid­ual endeav­ors as well as guide the suc­cess of your own per­for­mance. Your choic­es in lead­er­ship com­mu­ni­ca­tion mat­ter and should not be tak­en lightly.
 
Get­ting the point across to your teams and peers requires style and effec­tive strate­gies. It’s a big top­ic with many skilled approach­es. You’ll need ongo­ing prac­tice and study of course to assess your meth­ods and improve your own inter­per­son­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. It’s not always some­thing that can hap­pen overnight, but these con­cepts are some key ideas that can trans­form your process quick­ly and improve your rap­port with oth­ers and enhance your abil­i­ty to influence–no mat­ter the situation.
 
This is in no way a defin­i­tive sur­vey, but these are three sig­nif­i­cant lessons that you may eas­i­ly inte­grate into your own work, and I am cer­tain that you will have more suc­cess in your nego­ti­a­tions and when delegating.
  • Get Past Your Ego — Lever­age the col­lec­tive intel­li­gence of the group, and not just yourself
  • Take The Win-Win Per­spec­tive — Stop antag­o­niz­ing and find the path that doesn’t burn bridges
  • Avoid Assump­tion — Read the room, be aware of what is going on around you and respond strate­gi­cal­ly with­in context
No mat­ter the role or its respon­si­bil­i­ties, being in an exec­u­tive posi­tion means there will be fre­quent occa­sions where you will be lead­ing a vari­ety of peo­ple of dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives, per­son­al­i­ties, and pri­or­i­ties. As a leader, you are in a priv­i­leged posi­tion of deci­sion mak­ing, often­times under ambigu­ous cir­cum­stances where the next step on your project’s jour­ney may not be so obvi­ous; you’ll need all the tact and influ­ence you can muster to encour­age your teams to see the val­ue in your solu­tions. How­ev­er, if you are not keep­ing the fol­low­ing points in mind, you may very well be sac­ri­fic­ing your author­i­ty and trust­ed posi­tion as a mean­ing­ful leader. 
 
Now, these are by no means the only lessons to know but they will go a long way on Your jour­ney to become a bet­ter, more authen­tic and effec­tive communicator.

Get Past Your Ego

This one might be a hard­er pill to swal­low, espe­cial­ly where the com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels are biased, or where there is not a lot of col­lab­o­ra­tion. Much of the prac­tice of lead­ing requires pri­or­i­tiz­ing oth­ers’ needs before your own. You may be issu­ing the exec­u­tive order but it is often with oth­er groups in mind. Real­ize that your per­spec­tive is real­ly not that spe­cial and that there are oth­ers with­in your envi­ron­ment that hold valid insight worth acknowledging.
 
Make the effort to gen­uine­ly lis­ten. Main­tain the active intent of inte­grat­ing another’s sub­ject area exper­tise into solv­ing what­ev­er prob­lem may be at hand. One sided con­ver­sa­tions don’t help any­one, your way is not the only way. You are not always cor­rect, always aware, or the most effi­cient. You might be wrong.
 
So long as there is a clear and respect­ed struc­ture in place, you should encour­age oth­er insights that may not always align with your orig­i­nal ideas. There may be impor­tant ele­ments of a project that a more skilled set of eyes on your team can man­age. Allow­ing space for oth­er voic­es won’t bring the whole sys­tem crash­ing down. If you are con­stant­ly rail­road­ing dis­cus­sions and bend­ing the para­me­ters to fit only your way of doing and see­ing things, you are not doing a ser­vice to any­one and ulti­mate­ly set­ting up the domi­nos for your own failure. 

Work from a Win-Win Perspective

You nev­er know whose help you will need either now or in the future. You need not be everyone’s best friend, but you do need to main­tain pos­i­tive and acces­si­ble rela­tion­ships. If some­thing or some­one is not imme­di­ate­ly serv­ing your needs, they should not be cast aside with­out some sin­cere con­sid­er­a­tion; peo­ple should be treat­ed as some­thing more than a denud­ed ser­vice and means to an end. At the very least, acknowl­edge their efforts and let them know that although what they are offer­ing may not be appro­pri­ate right now, there may be oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties where their skills are absolute­ly necessary.
 
Like­wise, keep­ing an adver­sar­i­al or antag­o­nis­tic atti­tude invites oth­er groups to sub­vert you. If you are delib­er­ate­ly look­ing at ways for the out­come of anoth­er to be less­er or infe­ri­or to your own, you bet­ter believe anoth­er par­ty will be ready and will­ing to under­mine you with­out hes­i­ta­tion. No one wants to work with or be around a neg­a­tive or active­ly mean spir­it­ed per­son. And if you find your­self in such an envi­ron­ment, it will quick­ly spi­ral into a tox­ic game of back­stab­bing and sab­o­tage. Just don’t do it. 
 
It’s best to do what you can in a giv­en sit­u­a­tion to find a sat­is­fac­to­ry plan that accom­mo­dates needs while not com­pro­mis­ing your per­son­al or pro­fes­sion­al stan­dard. In short, it’s best to take the posi­tion of work­ing towards mutu­al sat­is­fac­tion. There will usu­al­ly be an avail­able ben­e­fit that all groups can set­tle for. The game is to locate that com­mon ground and nego­ti­ate opti­mal out­comes. If not, the dis­cus­sion should be direct­ed towards an exit strat­e­gy since if there is no mutu­al ben­e­fit, then it is just a bad business.
 

Avoid Assumption

If there is one way to quick­ly find your­self in hot water or oth­er poten­tial­ly pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tions, it is to act as if you are all know­ing. This les­son is also an exten­sion of not being ego­cen­tric – if you are stuck in your own nar­row per­spec­tive, you will inevitably trans­gress some per­son­al or pro­fes­sion­al bound­ary. Espe­cial­ly as a leader, the influ­ence of your opin­ion can incite or pla­cate those who hear it.
 
The sub­ject of Inter­per­son­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is beyond the scope here, but is an enor­mous­ly rich and fas­ci­nat­ing study of psy­chol­o­gy, soci­ol­o­gy, anthro­pol­o­gy as well as many oth­er sub­ject areas in the Human­i­ties. I encour­age you to dig deep­er but in brief, pay atten­tion to,
 
What they say
How they say it
Body Lan­guage & Behaviors
Facial expres­sions & Oth­er Gestures
 
The over­all will­ing­ness or unwill­ing­ness to participate
An added lay­er of com­plex­i­ty occurs when you have to engage with a large group of indi­vid­u­als. Again Orga­ni­za­tion­al Behav­ior and Group Dynam­ics is too deep a sub­ject to sur­vey here, but under­stand that how you engage 1:1, 1:2, or 1:3 et al. is not the same as how you han­dle com­mu­ni­ca­tion trans­ac­tions on larg­er scales. Read the Room as the say­ing goes. As a pro­fes­sion­al you should be cogent enough to be aware of these dif­fer­ent social and psy­cho­log­i­cal forces at play with­in a set of dis­crete circumstances. 
 
The point here is a reminder to not ignore them! Treat these dynam­ics with care and cau­tion. The atti­tudes of peo­ple can change dra­mat­i­cal­ly and with­out much incen­tive, and a par­tic­u­lar group may out­num­ber you in body and pos­sess their own iner­tial pow­er that far dwarfs any influ­ence you might wield. Your only means of guid­ance may be just what you say and how you say it. Take care not to assume that your view or ideas are shared, take into con­sid­er­a­tion that what you say may trig­ger or be an incen­tive for anoth­er to react. Care­less­ly mak­ing tone-deaf demands, cre­at­ing pol­i­cy based on what­ev­er belief or lim­it­ed under­stand­ing you hap­pen to have, or just will­ful­ly being unaware, these actions will demon­strate noth­ing more than an obvi­ous igno­rance oth­ers will quick­ly use against you.
 
The best you can do is become aware of the full con­text of the situation–as much as you can–and fur­ther take into account these addi­tion­al concepts, 
 
Cul­ture — per­son­al and corporate 
Pro­fes­sion­al Dynamics
Unique ele­ments of the situation
Stake­hold­ers and their Needs, Pri­or­i­ties and Attitudes 
Cliques and dif­fer­ent groups and man­age­ment teams
Poten­tial haz­ardous or detri­men­tal scenarios
Com­mon Objections
 
And above all the larg­er goal you are try­ing to achieve
It’s a lot to have on your mind, and it seems over­whelm­ing. But as a human and social ani­mal your­self, your mind is con­stant­ly nav­i­gat­ing these murky psy­chic waters. This is a moment to trust your intu­ition, and cou­ple that with an informed view of who you’re talk­ing to and what are the giv­en circumstances. 
Before you open your mouth, take the time to con­sid­er the con­se­quences of what you com­mu­ni­cate. There are no take backs, once some­thing is uttered it tends to remain in the hearts and minds of those who hear it. Like a small vine, it will grow and become entwined with every­thing else you say and do, it may even be held as stan­dard by which you are judged, so make sure it’s aligned with your own standard. 
 
You may nev­er tru­ly under­stand the views of any oth­er per­son and there are innu­mer­able frame­works and philoso­phies that can be har­nessed to help you nav­i­gate your cir­cum­stances. It is impor­tant that each of us cre­ates and prac­tices a method that suits each of our indi­vid­ual styles. And although you nev­er real­ly know what is going to hap­pen in a meet­ing or event, you must trust in what you have designed for your­self and act accord­ing­ly. Weigh your options quick­ly and assert a posi­tion. It is a tall order, and hope­ful­ly what has been sur­veyed here offers a few moments of inspi­ra­tion to help you bet­ter nav­i­gate what­ev­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion you find your­self in. 

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