How important is communication when you’re a leader? Vital, essential, crucial, indispensable. Pick your descriptor. And communication is even more important in a crisis like we find ourselves in now. The fact is—borne out by plenty of research—a leader spends 80-90% of their time communicating whether it’s vision, strategies, values, priorities, products or navigating a pandemic.
Highly engaged employees perform better, especially in a crisis
The better any leader is at communicating, the better performance and results they will get from everyone around them. There’s an immense amount of compelling data that shows emotionally engaged employees dramatically outperform their unengaged peers. And strong leadership communication is core to getting employees emotionally engaged.
There are several factors to effective, engaging leadership communications. You can learn more by downloading them at the link below. Fundamentally, it’s about making connections and building relationships.
You have to build strong personal connections
One of the keys is connecting with people personally as well as professionally. One of my coaching clients at a large multinational company provides a perfect example. He got a one-on-one meeting with the CEO even though he is three clicks down on the org chart. When they started the video conference, the first thing the CEO said was, “Tell me about your family.” My client shared, then the CEO told him about his own family. I talked to my client afterward and he was genuinely moved by the CEO’s interest in his personal life. It established a connection that made the subsequent business conversation more open and meaningful. It also motivated and inspired my client.
Leaders who communicate empathetically and respectfully receive trust, confidence and engagement in return. If you’re not connecting with the people around you in this way, you’re leaving performance and results on the table. You can start doing this at any time and as many leaders are finding, waiting for a crisis is too late.
Learn more by downloading the Seven Keys to Inspiring Leadership Communication at the link below. We help our clients improve their communications so they can make stronger connections. Let us know if we can be of help to you.
Post by Larry Shoop