🗣 5 Practices to improve your communication skills!
Communication is one of the most important skills to develop in any career, but above all, one of the key skills to succeed in leadership roles.
Mainly talking about tech leadership, communication is all around! e.g., your mentoring processes, one-on-one’s, delegation, when sharing a new project, among others.
Today, in this weekly Lidr pill 💊 , I want to share 5 actionable tips that will help you master this key skill and become a leader who communicates effectively, connects, and inspires his team — and does not just transmit information.
So, let’s go!
1.👂🏻 Listen before you speak.
A good communicator is a good listener.
Communication is a two-way process! A good listener doesn’t lose information, asks the right questions, can discuss a topic, and understands the other person.
Active listening involves paying full attention to what the other one is saying and understanding their thoughts, ideas, and emotions.
2. 📑 Give clear messages
Techies are not robots!
Our message must be clear and concise, using an easy-to-understand vocabulary.
I know that in the technical area, most of the time, we use technical terms and meanings hard to follow, but that’s why we must emphasize on delivering the right message as straightforward as possible, otherwise, it can give rise to multiple interpretations that hinder the objective of the message you want to deliver.
3. ✍️ Write accurately, especially if you work with a remote team.
Now that most operations are online, with files being worked on in the cloud, and where we have so much information at our fingertips, it can become challenging to understand what the person writing to us is referring to.
When you try to communicate with someone on your team by referring to a resource or file, instead of referring to “the document we talked about yesterday,” try attaching a direct link every time you mention a document or file. You will save time for the person you are communicating with and avoid information gaps.
4. 💫 Be empathetic
Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another". - Alfred Adler.
Remember that it’s not what you say but how you say it! You may have great content, but if you don’t use empathy, there is a chance that your message will not be relatable to anyone.
Empathy allows you to communicate in such a way that you connect with others’ way of communicating, which builds trust to communicate openly, honestly, and often. It will enable you to express yourself, understand, and create deeper and more powerful personal bonds.
5.💡Get feedback from your communication style
Leaders do not assume that their teams correctly received the message they delivered. It is necessary to verify that the information that has reached them, its entirety and is clear. If this is not the case, do not blame your team, but rather change the way you transmit the message and try it again.
There are many more tips you can apply to your communication process, but to go deeper into this topic, I’d like to share a couple of great resources down below that contribute to mastering this key skill for you.
Curated resources to grow as a great leader in tech.
💬 How are technical decisions made and communicated?
Join tech leads worldwide to discuss about Effective Communication within our Lidr Community!
📑 Good Leadership Is About Asking Good Questions
Especially when they find themselves in the midst of crisis and uncertainty, leaders should ask powerful and inspiring questions. Asking questions well can put you on the path to solving intractable problems and will also help you connect with others.
Read the full article written by John Hagel III on Harvard Business Review.
🎥 The magical science of storytelling | David JP Phillips | TEDxStockholm
Why is Storytelling so powerful? And how do we use it to our advantage? Presentations expert David JP Phillips shares key neurological findings on storytelling and with the help of his own stories induces in us the release of four neurotransmitters of his choice.
👀 Get more free resources for tech leads.
If you want more resources, we have curated a bunch of articles and resources within our Lidr Community to help you with the transition from software development to Management and navigating the leadership career path.
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Alvaro Moya,
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