Leadership Communication Skills

Doing a Google search for “leadership skills” will bring you to boundless websites that might talk about or list similar skill sets around effective leadership. Often these lists do not provide informed backdrop of why leaders should use the tactic or how the tactics work to be effective. What I want to do here is to identify the necessary skills one needs to be an effective leader through the use of effective and informed communication choices and strategies. Many of these skills can be tied to the content in previous chapters around basic communication principles, practices, models, and choices. By doing this, we can see the why and how better, as well as project more clearly the outcome of a given situation.

Learning Outcomes – After reading this chapter, you will be able to

1. identify necessary skills to be an effective leader through using effective and informed communication practices

2. reflect on specific past experiences where you observed leaders who did not have at least one of the skills in this chapter, and consider the outcome

3. apply the skills identified in this chapter to past or current situations and project outcomes

4. identify a plan to develop your leadership skills

Thought-Provoking Questions

1. Reflecting on a situation when things did not work out the way you anticipated or preferred, what led to the outcome form a communication perspective? What skill would have aided the situation if used?

2. Are there times when you engage in those negative listening practices we discussed previously in this reader? Recall a situation when listening ineffectively led to a less desired outcome. How could this have changed using effective listening?

3. How important is it for a leader to model effective leadership communication skills in everyday business. What can you see the outcomes would be if a leader did not engage in effective leadership communication?

Chapter Outline – This chapter identifies and discusses the following skills in Leadership Communication

1. Effective Listening

2. Self-Reflection and Self-Awareness

3. Reading the Room

4. Using Effective and Appropriate Language

5. Motivate Others to Transformation

Leadership Communication Skills

Listening – refresh your memory on listening, how it is different from merely hearing a sound, and what are the pitfalls we fall into when we engage in negative listening patterns?

-what is said and what is not said?

-what specific language is used? (and how does that impact meaning?)

-what is said and how is it said?

-How do others listen? How do you listen? Is there any aggressive listening, pseudo listening, or selective listening occurring?

-What can you do to become a more effective listener?

Effective listening helps with interpersonal conflict whether you as the leader are involved or not. Effective listening can help you avoid a conflict emerging or it can assist with mitigating the conflict situation. Effective listening can also assist with a leader’s goal setting, whether for a strategic plan, 5 year vision, or other daily goal setting.

Self-Awareness – this is part of social and emotional intelligence. Daniel Goleman indicates there are five components of Emotional Intelligence (EI), they are: self-awareness, self-regulation (self-management), motivation, empathy, and social skills. These are the five original domains in EI developed in 1998 by Goleman. In 2002, they were redesigned as: Self-awareness, self-management, empathy, and social skills (putting this all together in relationships). All of these components are important in their own unique way self-awareness can inform the other components by asking the self questions such as the following:

1. how do I respond when a particular phenomenon occurs?

2. since I usually respond in this particular way, and if I do not like this or if I realize my response is not helpful, how can I change that behavior?

3. why do I do certain things? Would other reasons enable or direct me to do something else?

4. can I identify with my friends AND those people who are not my friends?

5. how do I engage when I am in a social setting and do I like it?

Having self-awareness and continuing to build that self-awareness can make or break your leadership capacity.

Here is more on Goleman’s emotional intelligence.

Reading the Room – this ties into emotional intelligence, you get better at reading the room, and then knowing how to reply more effectively, when you develop emotional intelligence. This is a life-long skill to be developed.

Appropriate Language – this refers to using language effectively. Understanding verbal communication and its functions, can enable one to use language that contributes to your audience accepting your message. Using inclusive language will be less likely to alienate an audience or parts of the audience. Inclusive language also helps a leader identify with others in a way that invites collaboration rather than fear. Also using supportive language vs. defense language (remember Jack Gibb?) can make the difference between bonding with your audience or losing your audience. As a leader, you make careful language choices as the language we use determines how we (and others) think about something.

Watch Gibb’s Supportive v. Defensive Language here.

Modeling to and Motivating Others – Whatever you expect from others, you should be willing to model that communication behavior yourself. This demonstrates you are “along with” or “in the same boat” others and you follow the same rules they do. As a leader, there should not be different rules around communicative engagement. Demonstrating clarity in language, goal setting and attaining, time management, and other positive qualities sets the bar for others to follow.

What other skills that are different from those above do you believe should be added to this list? And, why?

Stop and reflect upon your leadership experiences up to this point in your life. Do be tied to identifying positions of leadership. While they are helpful, you can also lead from within. Draw from these experiences in your reflections.

Building These Leadership Skills

Here are steps you can take to improve and build your leadership skills.

1. First, this requires a learning mindset. If you think you already know everything or that you have tried everything already, then stop right there. With a closed mind like that, you will be doomed to fail. No matter what you already know, there is always more room for learning. Open your mind and develop a learning mindset.

2. Do a self-evaluation around leadership. You can either buy an expensive test form an online consultant or company, or you can engage in some healthy self-reflection. This does not cost anything. Focus on being more self-aware about your leadership skills and where you are in developing them. The leadership skills above each include a range of smaller skills related to each category of skill. Try to develop a list of 10 skills. Date your list.

3. Make a conscious effort to address each of them in any order. You might plan out a timeline that is a 1 or 2 year plan. though, it might be better to isolate a few goals, and assess them more short-term.

4. Once you identify the specific goal(s), make a timeline for developing them and assessing them. How will you know that you developed the skill?

5. Assess your skill(s) according to your timeline. And do not be afraid to fail.

For some skills, you might ask others how you are doing with a certain skill. Other skills might require take professional development courses through various resources.

Here are some other approaches to building your leadership skills: (these are taken from Indeed.com)

• Continue learning through additional degrees or training programs.
• Find a mentor who embodies the type of leadership you want to display and learn from them.
• Ask for feedback regularly from other leaders and your employees.
• Evaluate your leadership style to understand what works best for you, and identify potential problems with how you lead.
• Experiment with new things all the time to find the best strategies for you.
• Understand the expectations of your role to help you determine if you’re meeting them.

Remember, you can assess where you are right now with your leadership skills. The make a plan to develop the areas that are most important to you and or your domain of engagement.

Conclusion

This is just a beginning when it comes to leadership skills. There are diverse studies that identify different key leadership skills. From the perspective of this course, we are focusing on Leadership Communication. The bottom line is leadership skills always involve communication. By bringing together literature from the disciplines of communication and leadership studies, we can help you build key skills that will advance your leadership qualities. The next chapter focuses on leading teams and navigating through conflict.