A real detriment to any business is a lack of communication or ineffective communication. You and your staff need to be able to say what you need to, when you need to, in a positive and efficient manner.

A natural communicator is born, but they can also be made. Not everyone comes with the built-in ability to be confident, respectful and direct when needed, but there are ways to teach yourself and your staff how to do just that.

Effective communication must start at the top – communication and leadership are inextricably tied together, because how can you inspire and guide others if you can’t communicate in an authentic and credible way?

Great leaders have 5 effective communication traits:

• Do as you say – This is about trust, which is at the forefront of effective leadership. Your actions must align with your words. If you communicate to your staff that you want something done a certain way, or that you expect something from them, you must be able to demonstrate what you say with your actions. For instance, if you tell your staff that they must follow a specific process, you must also follow that process. You are the role model for your employees and they look to you for the correct course of action.
• Simplifying complexities – Any industry is complex and information is being thrown at your staff constantly. An effective leader needs to be able to simplify the complexity of the businesses and find a streamlined approach to deal with things. You also need to be able to voice your thoughts in a clear and concise manner so that your staff and customers can grasp and act upon it efficiently. This reduces waste in the company and creates a more relaxed vibe for your staff, devoid of stress.
• Find your voice – Effective leaders know how to talk to their staff in a way that doesn’t make them feel inferior. Sure, you’re the boss and they know that, but you also want them to feel comfortable coming to you with any issues. Let your personality come through rather than just using ‘corporate speak’ because you think it is more appropriate. That is not to say proper grammar and language aren’t important, but concentrate on being a real and approachable person. Be genuine and people will respect you.
• Get visible – Make yourself known to people, don’t just be the person behind the computer sending emails and memos. Pick up the phone or go visit someone at their desk if you want to speak to them. Whilst email serves a purpose and tracks conversations, it is also beneficial to speak to someone in person, especially if it is a subject that could come across wrong via email. You want to make sure you are getting your point across and it also shows you as a real person to your staff. Make sure you take the time to walk around your office, or factory, or shop floor, so that your staff can see that you are engaged and care about their work.
• Listen with your eyes and ears – This is about reading body language as much as it is listening to your staff. It is easy to get your message out to your staff, but it is important to note how they react to it. You need to be able to tune in to both what you see and hear. You need to be able to read between the lines and see nonverbal clues. Sometimes a person’s body language can speak louder than anything they are saying.

Do you think you display any of these traits? If not, think about how you can work on incorporating them into your leadership style.

Effective communication is a vital tool for any business owner or leader. Your success at getting your point across can mean the difference between sealing a deal and missing out on an opportunity, as well as developing your staff so that they can operate in the most effective and efficient way possible.

Empathy is vital for good communication. The dictionary defines it as “the quality or process of entering fully, through imagination, into another’s feelings or motives.” In the fullest sense, it implies putting yourself into the other person’s shoes, or even getting into his or her skin, so that you really understand them.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” 

To kill a mockingbird, Harper Lee

Consider these suggestions for being empathetic as you communicate your ideas:

• Successful communication is a two-way process. People must present their ideas in a form others can understand, and they must, in turn, listen to others to understand how the message is received.
• Organise your ideas. Present your ideas in an organised way. Be sure your ideas and your thinking are crystal clear to you. Write them down. Arrange them in light of what you know about others. When you’re absolutely certain you’ve organised your ideas, you can be more confident they will be understood and accepted.
• Tap into people’s interests. Present your ideas to others in a form that highlights their benefits. Strive to understand people’s needs and expectations and phrase your ideas in those terms to communicate effectively.
• Paint a picture. Some words appeal to emotions, desires and needs. Other words appeal to reason and fact. Words of both emotion and logic can contribute to painting pictures of ideas. Recognise the needs of others and express your ideas in words that form a mental picture that promises to supply those needs.
• Vary your communication style. Use the communication style most comfortable and familiar to your listener. Adjust your style to enable your listener to understand and accept your message without the need to “translate” it. When you’re working on a team, be aware of the communication styles that are different from yours and capitalise upon the strengths of those differences.

Click to download LMA’s Effective Communication Checklist to fine-tune your communication skills.

Every manager’s job is unique but they all depend upon the basic need to work with and through other people. Those who work most effectively with and through other people produce the most outstanding results.

The purpose of a manager is to achieve results through the activities of other people. When the manager succeeds, the organisation benefits directly and your effectiveness as a manager plays a vital role in achieving your personal goals.

As a manager, you can multiply the effects of your personal growth by inspiring and directing your people to undertake a program of personal development. When you lead your team members to gain new skills and to be more productive in their activities you add unlimited power to the effectiveness of your organisation.

A Developer of People

To accomplish more through the people in your organisation, strive to be a developer of people. Recognise people, not capital spending and automation, as the primary source of productivity. Then, treat people with the concern they deserve as your most important valuable asset. The results and rewards are well worth your efforts.

A Leader of People

An effective manager is also a leader of people. You have both the opportunity and responsibility to give direction for the organisation. You show people where to go and help them define the best path for reaching that destination. A managers ability to clearly communicate where the team and the organisation is going was ranked the number one characteristic of a good manager in 2014.

Genuine leadership involves gaining commitment from those you lead so that they- like you- understand their part in the overall purpose of the organisation and are committed to its success. Leadership involves the ability to communicate, to persuade, to encourage, and to inspire people to take meaningful and productive actions. Powerful results flow from team members who willingly follow a manager enthusiastically, committed to effectiveness and success.

A Builder of an Effective Team

An effective manager builds a diverse group of people into a smoothly functioning team. In an effective team, each team member fulfills a specific, assigned role, everything clicks and the goal is reached. It is the function of the manager to see that each team member receives the proper assignment, knows how to execute it, and is committed to the appropriate action. It is also the function of the manager to see that each team member is held accountable and to provide feedback that supports continued success.

Are you an effective manager? Take LMA’s DIY Leadership Management Competency Analysis and find out now.

One of the most important motivational functions of the successful leader is goal setting that involves every member of the team. Without specific goals and carefully written plans for their attainment, the success of your organisation is left to chance. The future of your organisation is far too important to be left to chance.

Unless you, yourself, are goal directed, and unless you create a goal setting climate within all levels of your organisation, most of your other leadership efforts will be in vain. You cannot set another person’s goals, but you can create the climate that encourages and develops goal seeking attitudes among your team members. You can also help team members relate their goals to the overall organisational objectives.

There are four basics of directing the goal setting of others.

1. Each person must choose his or her own goals. To accomplish any goal, a person must have a genuine commitment to that goal. When personal goals can be realised by accomplishing organisational goals, a high motivational climate will exist.
2. Make it a challenge. Encourage team members to set goals, to stretch and reach – to do more than has been done in the past. If a goal is to be motivational, some risk is involved. Low goals do not inspire people to be all they can be – to use their full potential. On the other hand, high goals will cause people to stretch, reach, grow and use more of their full potential.
3. Establish a personal development philosophy. When you expect your team members to grow, develop and use more of their talents and abilities, you can expect and accept failures by some of your people in reaching some of their goals. You grow personally as you help your team members grow. In effect you multiply yourself by building their leadership capacities to equal or surpass your own. If, on the other hand, you have no tolerance for their shortcomings – their failure to reach certain aspects of their goals – the rejection you feel will somehow be communicated to them and they will gradually cease to do any goal setting whatsoever. The results will be the opposite of what you want to accomplish.
4. Give feedback on performance. Just as you are better able to motivate yourself when you have periodic feedback on your performance, your team members also need to know how well they are doing. Give them frequent feedback, making it as specific as possible. In so doing, you recharge the motivating forces that originally set your team members on course toward achieving their goals.

Remember, goal setting is a prelude to action. Goal setting is dynamic. When you and your team members set and achieve goals on a regular basis, you will increase your chances of success and each team member will grow, develop, and use more of his or her talents and abilities.

View LMA’s Principles of Goal Setting for greater insight into goal setting.

Success does not result from luck or random chance. Success doesn’t just ”happen” to the fortunate few. Instead, achievers make their own opportunities. They possess a “Do-lt­-Now” attitude that motivates them to take the actions required to bridge the gap between their dreams and reality and achieve success.

The Greek philosopher Plato said, “If people would move the world, they must first move themselves.” This statement offers one of the enduring truths of all time:

To accomplish personally meaningful and productive results, translate all of your ideas, your plans, and your decisions into immediate action.

The greatest handicap any person can possess is the insidious habit of procrastination. Procrastination is responsible for missed opportunities, low productivity, and general dissatisfaction with life. The most brilliant idea, the most important decision, or the greatest promotion you will ever have will happen only when you take action and make it happen to achieve success.

Activity is not enough, activity is not achievement. Your activity must be targeted and focused on your end goals.

A “Do-It-Now” attitude and self-generated urgency are universally available, and are the keys to achieve success and personal and professional happiness. Anyone can become so motivated that you reach and surpass important life goals. The intensity of desire you develop depends on you; others cannot supply it for you.

You are the only one responsible for your success.

• Take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way.
• Exercise initiative.
• Set a goal, develop a written plan with deadlines
• Determine the appropriate time for taking the right action, and then take action with unswerving singleness of purpose.
• Keep your mind focused on the rewards – not the pain – of doing your best.

Adopt a “Do-lt-Now” attitude today, because now is the time to succeed!

Organisations will grow to maturity, level off and die unless new, talented people are added and the existing people continue to grow. A recent survey found that 83% of employees would prefer to advance their career with their current employer but only 58% think that this is likely to happen.*

As a leader or manager, you are responsible not just for the performance of your team but also for their development and growth. The long term viability and stability of the organisation and its workforce depends on it.

In order to successfully develop people, here are 7 truths that you should know:

• People only use a small percentage of their talents and abilities. This is great because when you get people to use more of their talents and abilities, productivity will be improved without additional cost. Click here to view the benefits of developing your people.
• People remember failures longer than successes. Although failures or setbacks can be tremendous opportunities for growth, improvement, and new opportunities, many times people will let failures dampen their attitude, self-image and self-esteem. They will often let these setbacks and failures hold them back from taking risks and/or setting new goals.
• People tend to concentrate on their weaknesses. It is important to bolster or overcome weaknesses, but when excessive time is spent on weaknesses it usually means that a person isn’t spending time in high payoff activities or utilising his or her strengths.
• People tend to repeat behaviour that is rewarded. There is a story about a fisherman who looked over the side of his boat and saw a snake with a frog in its mouth. Feeling sorry for the frog, he reached down, gently removed the frog from the snake’s mouth and let the frog go free. Now he felt sorry for the hungry snake. Having no food, he took out a flask of bourbon and poured a few drops into the snake’s mouth. The snake swam away happy, the frog was happy and the man was happy for having performed such good deeds. He thought all was well until a few minutes passed and he heard something knock against the side of his boat. Looking down with stunned disbelief, the fisherman saw the snake was back- with two frogs! The fable carries an important lesson: you don’t get what you hope for, ask for, wish for, or beg for – you get what you reward. Come what may, you can count on people and creatures to do the things that they believe will benefit them most.
• People flourish under praise. You may have witnessed young children beam in excitement or “puff up” with pride when someone gives them praise. Adults are no different than children when it comes to praise. Although many adults have been conditioned to feign modesty or to reject praise, it’s still important to their growth. As long as you’re sincere, it will be very difficult to praise someone too much. For the next seven days, look for things to praise people for and make an extra effort to praise people for any and all accomplishments. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the reaction you get.
• People crumble under criticism and rejection. Criticism and rejection have the opposite effect of praise and can be very damaging to a person’s growth. When feedback on performance is required, concentrate on the desired outcome or the behaviour, not the person.
• People are creatures of habit and find it difficult to change. People will change when they hurt enough to have to, get enough insight to want to, and/or learn enough to be able to.

In order to grow people you need to see their unlimited potential and concentrate on what they can become, not what they are now. You need to reward the behaviour you want and praise progress as well as accomplishment. If you want better results, you need better behaviours from your people. This requires change and, as a leader, you need to provide the best possible environment to encourage change.

When your people grow, your organisation will grow, and your success as a leader will be ensured.

*LMA’s L.E.A.D. Survey book ‘Today’s Workplace – Present Realities… Future Realities’ 2013