One of the most important qualities of a successful manager is effective communication. Managers might have it a bit more difficult in more recent years thanks to the evolution of normal office communication. In addition to face-to-face conversations or meetings, there’s also email, Slack, video meetings, social media, plus several other ways to communicate with employees. To effectively manage employees, managers must master communication no matter what setting it’s happening.
What Communication Skills Should Managers Know?
Quick Note: Why Effective Communication Matters
You’ve heard it before, but strong communication skills are vital for a good leader. When you have effective communication skills, it allows you to:
- Explain tasks and goals clearly
- Understand what your team is working on and provide helpful feedback
- Resolve any conflicts that may arise
- Ensure everyone is on the same page with deadlines, expectations, etc.
4 Communication Skills that Are Essential for Managers
Be a Good Listener
The best communicative strait of a good manager is that he/she is a good listener. When an employee is talking, they are listening intently with both their ears and their eyes. During conversations with employees, it’s important that you don’t multitask but instead give undivided attention.
Here are some tips to become a more effective listener:
- Paraphrase back what you’ve heard to recap; this will ensure that you understood it correctly
- Ask questions
- Avoid multitasking
- Do not interrupt the person who is speaking
- Show interest by nodding or other affirmative cues
Know When and How to Communication with Your Team
With so many ways to communicate, it also creates more time to communicate. As an effective manager, you will need to know when you should communicate and with what medium is best.
Communicating with your employees should mostly be done during usual work hours. Extending communication beyond work hours, especially when it’s not vital, can impact an employee’s work-life balance and overall job satisfaction.
It’s also important that the manager discerns which type of communication to use. Official and important work matters should be done on things like email versus casual instant messaging services or via text messages. However, a quick comment or question might easily be sent on messaging platforms like Slack.
Accommodate Employee Needs
In addition to listening to employees about their work, managers must be able to understand how employees are feeling about their overall work environment. A healthy workplace contributes to greater job satisfaction.
Pay attention to possible sensitivities that employees may have so you don’t inadvertently offend anyone and cause any problems. Remember that every employee is unique and has different life experiences and cultural beliefs. It might be best to avoid anything that could be sensitive so you can keep your employee morale high and work productively.
You should also understand that certain topics of conversation might need additional background information if certain employees aren’t as connected to that leg of the business operations. Take the time to get everyone caught up to speed in these types of discussions so everyone feels connected and useful.
Set Clear Action Plans
An effective manager will be clear in their calls to action, not complex. When you give employees instructions, they should know exactly what they need to do, when they need to do it, and why it’s important.
Here are a few examples of clear action plans that managers need to set for their employees:
- Day-to-day tasks and responsibilities
- Schedules for projects
- Deadlines for goals and objectives
- What “success” means for your team and company as a whole
It’s very hard for employees to be successful if they don’t understand what is expected of them. Setting clear action plans for your employees in these different areas is vital.
Recruit Skilled Employees for Your Team
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