10 Communication Secrets For Great Female Business Leaders
Communication and leadership go hand-in-hand and you will not become a great leader if you cannot communicate effectively. There are skills that can help when it comes to delivering a message clearly — pronunciation, enunciation, diction, delivery — but the true indication of a great communicator is what they give back to others. Communication is not about focusing on yourself but rather on those around you, something we all too often forget.
Many a business has failed owing to fundamental flaws in their line of communication. Likewise there are startups that have flourished thanks to their exemplary corporate interactions.
For far too long, communication in business has been about dictatorship — telling others what to do and expecting immediate results. The traditional view of a leader is someone who sits behind a closed door, someone who should not be questioned, a higher being who, no-matter-what will not admit that they made the wrong call. That is changing — thankfully — and changing fast. In modern business, communication is a two way street and as with many business practices the influx of women into influential positions has changed the landscape dramatically. Women have brought unique sensibilities to the table, including the attitude that it’s okay to be wrong, to ask others for advice and to listen. Women have proven that natural and personal relationships don’t undermine your ability to lead and they have shown that a little sensitivity and empathy can go a long way.
Female business communicators don’t speak and expect to be heard; rather they possess a heightened sense of situational and contextual awareness. They take the time to listen to those around them (including their subordinates) and are astute in their observations.
They are highly skilled at reading a person or group by sensing their moods, dynamics, attitudes, values and concerns. And not only do they read their environment well, but they also possess the uncanny ability to adapt their messaging to said environment without missing a beat. Women have pioneered the belief that good communication is not about the messenger but about meeting the needs and the expectations of those they’re communicating with. With this in mind, is it not fair to suggest that female communication strategies could lead to greater success in modern business?
10 Female Communication Strategies That Yield Excellent Results In Modern Business
1. Read Between The Lines
Often the most pertinent information is not outwardly spoken but rather written between the lines. What a person omits from their verbal communication can be just an enlightening, if not more so than what actually comes out of their mouth. Astute business leaders understand this and take the time to listen rather than increase the volume of rhetoric.
It’s important to keep your ears and eyes open when in a position of authority; you will be amazed what you can pick up and glean from unspoken communication.
2. Learn To Listen
Listening is leadership skill that has been neglected in the past and many leaders have a listening deficiency, which is not only holding back their personal development, but also that of their team and de facto, their company. Leadership is not about who can shout the loudest, but often about who can be the quietest at the right time.
Since women have been gracing more and more boardrooms with their presence, the question of ‘what makes a good leader and communicator’ has been raised. Without making sweeping generalizations, women have the propensity to listen more and shout less when it comes to leadership and decision-making. Great communication is not just about getting your point across concisely and clearly, but also about allowing others to be heard.
3. A Little Empathy Can Go A Long Way
Empathy in the context of communication can be directly connected to authenticity and transparency. An empathetic business leader is far more likely to earn the trust and gain the respect of their underlings. If you always enter conversations unwilling to understand or listen to the other person not only do you miss out on valuable information, but also alienate yourself from that person.
4. Keep An Open Mind
Great communicators are not just great talkers — in fact communication extends far beyond the realm of speaking. The definition of a communicator is someone who can impart knowledge or exchange thoughts, feelings and ideas through speech, writing or gestures, to allow a feeling or emotion to be sensed, to have a sympathetic mutual understanding or to make a connecting passage or route. Just one small element of communication is speech; the other elements are made up of mutual understanding and sympathy. That is why great communicators enter the arena with an open mind. Communication isn’t only about impressing your own thoughts upon others, but allowing their opinions to have an impact on your conclusions.
Ultimately, the end goal of better communication in business is results, and the best results come from collaboration, shared ideas and teamwork. It goes without saying then that leaders with open minds run more successful organizations. As leadership expert Matt Myatt says, “the rigidity of a closed mind is the single greatest limiting factor of new opportunities.” Don’t let your own inflexibility hold you back.
5. Ditch The Corporate Jargon
“Today we are going to have a thought shower regarding our core competencies, which must of course align with our corporate values. Now there are a lot of moving parts to consider, so I need you all to think outside the box. We need to get our ducks in a row and find a solution to leverage the skills of the whole team. Drill down to the root issues, synergize, reach out to your peers, give 110 percent and take this department to the next level. This is our window of opportunity. Shoot!”
Ahem, excuse me, what? I have sat through my fair share of meetings just like this one, stuffed with catch phrases, corporate jargon (read b******s) and buzzwords and honestly, you come out the other end none the wiser about what you need to achieve. Good communicators are straightforward and to the point, what’s more, they know how to articulate their needs without having to rely on cheesy catch phrases. Now let me translate the jargon rich tirade above, and you decide the direction you would rather have been given.
“Morning everyone, how are you? We need to create a marketing brochure for the department that reflects everything we do and what we offer our clients on a daily basis. Make sure you speak to Sarah about the great sustainability initiatives we have recently put into place and be sure to include the great work of the design team. I would like the brochure to be creative and interesting — let’s try and aim for something a little bit different. Any ideas or suggestions to get us started?”
6. Honesty Is The Best Policy
You can write the best speech in the world, but people won’t listen if they don’t trust you. Likewise, your peers and subordinates will not open up to you if they feel their message will be passed on or misconstrued in any way. Trust cannot be demanded — like respect, it must be earned, and the only way to do that is by thinking, acting and decisioning right.
If you are honest with those around you, they are likely to return the favour making for far more meaningful communication. If you constantly play your cards close to your chest, others will become wary — they will shy away from you and may put your guarded behaviour down to poor character or a lack of integrity.
That being said, as a leader its likely you will be privy to information that is not suitable for everybody — and it goes both ways, don’t spill the beans when someone else had trusted you as a confidante. Being honest and open is about saying what you mean, communicating clearly and not in riddles, and telling the truth, even if the truth is — I am not in a position to divulge that information.
7. Do Away With Vagueness
It’s easy to give vague directions, but it will leave those around you with little to no clarity or direction. Number one, don’t give an order if you are not 100 percent clear about what you want the end result to achieve. Number two, don’t expect the information you get back to be what you wanted if you didn’t make your needs and requirements clear. When communicating its important you share the reasoning behind a task as well as ask for its completion.
Keep your message simple and concise as opposed to complicated and confusing. Good leaders communicate with precision and transparency; their message is not mixed and convoluting but rather succinct, direct and well defined. Time is precious; make every word count.
8. Time To Get Personal
If you want to build meaningful relationships in business you need to do away with corporate communication and instead instigate conversations — think dialogue not monologue. Communication is not a one-way street and guarded interactions will only result in negativity and misunderstanding.
Traditional business theory tells leaders to put a little distance between themselves and their subordinates. However creating a barrier only serves to alienate yourself from the rest of your team. “Stay at arms length if you want to remain in the dark receiving only highly sanitized versions of the truth,” says Myatt, writing for Forbes. If you fail to develop personal relationships with people you will never know what’s really on their mind until it’s too late to do anything about it.
9. Know Your Topic Like The Back Of Your Hand
Archaic leadership guidance will advise you to speak with absolute confidence even if the topic in question is outside your remit. However, this kind of blind leadership and deceitful communication will only shoot you in the foot down the line. The fake it until you make it days have long since passed, and for most people fast and slick equals not credible.
Being able to woo a crowd is not enough — granted, great communicators are good talkers but the old phase, “it’s not what you say, but the way that you say it that matters,” is defunct in modern business. It absolutely does matter what you say and knowing your subject matter is critical. When it comes to business, women are generally a lot less gung-ho than their male counterparts and will only give advice or speak with total confidence when they know they subject matter back to front. This allows those around them to gain useful information and learn valuable skills, but also opens up the floor to more meaningful discussion.
Don’t get a reputation for having form over substance. Great communicators have both or at least admit their novice status, when talking about a topic they are not familiar with.
10. Focus On Giving More Than You Get
Selfish communicators are not really communicators at all, they are takers and nobody likes a taker. The best communicators are not only skilled at gathering information while communicating, they are also adept at transferring ideas, aligning expectations, inspiring action and spreading their vision.
You know you have reached a new level of communication prowess when you are genuinely focusing on contributing more than what you receive in return. Even though this may seem counter-intuitive, by intensely focusing on the other party’s wants, needs and desires, you’ll learn far more than you ever would by focusing on your own agenda.
