Building Leadership Skills: Becoming a Great Communicator

By Jessica McCune on July 10, 2017 | Topics > Workforce

Communication is important within a team or business. Leaders must communicate effectively to be able to build a cohesive and productive team. Mastering all kinds of communication is essential, including face-to-face, phone, email, social media, large group settings, etc. It’s important to make sure your messages are easy to understand and that you’ve explained your messages clearly.

Listening is also an important skill leaders should possess, and knowing when to shut up and listen is something successful leaders must know how to do. Don’t let yourself be distracted while you are trying to listen to someone else. Focus solely on the person who is speaking so you can clearly understand what they are saying. This will help eliminate most instances of miscommunication and misunderstandings. The most successful leaders are highly effective communicators because it is a major building block in their success.

It's also important to remember that communication is not only verbal. Keep in mind there are other ways we communicate: body language, gestures and facial expressions. These types of nonverbal communication can help or hurt how we communicate with people and how they communicate with us. Realizing how nonverbal communications can play a part in how people interpret what we are communicating is vital to ensuring the correct message is being relayed.

There are many important facets of communication that play an important role in the success or failure of our attempts to communicate with one another. Knowing which communication skills you need to improve on and which you excel at will help you grow into a great communicator, and in turn help shape you into a successful leader!

For more information about how to become a great communicator, check out this list of the top 20 books on communication as ranked by Dr. Jon Warner.

References:

Forbes
Investopedia
the balance