Mastering Influential Communication

Gallup's 2024 State of the Global Workforce Report has just been released, and it offers crucial insights for today's workforce. One standout finding is that 20% of workers experience significant loneliness. This issue is often attributed to the rise in remote work, but effective communication can bridge this gap.

Having worked remotely for much of my career, I can attest that effective communication practices keep teams connected and engaged, regardless of their physical location.

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The Power of Trust and Engagement

The Gallup Report highlights that employees who trust their organizational leadership are 4.5 times more likely to be engaged.

Engaged employees are happier, more productive, and 62% less likely to experience burnout.

Effective communication is key here: those who believe their leaders communicate well are 4.3 times more likely to be engaged and 65% less likely to feel burned out.

As a leader, it's your responsibility to develop the kind of communication skills that maintain transparency and clarity to foster this engagement.

Recognition and the Disconnect

Another revealing statistic from the Gallup Report:

Nearly 60% of managers think they recognize their team's hard work but only 35% of individual contributors feel the same.

This disconnect underscores the importance of effective communication.

I recently hosted a leadership workshop teaching key principle of influential communication, here are the standout principles for mastering communication as a middle management leader and enhancing your confidence to convey messages clearly and effectively.

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Mastering communication for middle management involves five key areas:

1. Effective Communication

2. Building Trust and Credibility

3. Influencing Skills for Leadership

4. Conflict Resolution and Negotiation

5. Leadership Presence and Impact

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In this article, I’ll focus on the three most impactful areas: foundations of effective communication, building trust and credibility, and leadership presence and impact.

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Foundations of Effective Communication

Effective communication starts with clarity, active listening, and constructive feedback.

• Clarity involves articulating messages clearly to avoid misunderstandings. Set your intentions for what you want to communicate before you start the conversation. Be ready to pivot, as necessary.
• People want to feel heard and understood. Active listening shows your team that their input is valued, building rapport and connection.
• Constructive feedback fosters continuous improvement through open dialogue. Ensure your feedback includes what is going right as well as opportunities for improvement.

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Building Trust and Credibility

Trust is the foundation of strong professional relationships. Building trust involves consistency, transparency, and ethical behavior.

• No one likes surprises. If they can’t count on you to be consistent in your approach and responses, your team will delay or avoid tough conversations. Consistency means being predictable and reliable in your actions.
• Transparency involves openly communicating decisions and changes to reduce uncertainty. Even if your hands are tied when it comes to changing conditions, your team will appreciate your honesty about the situation.
• Ethical behavior, simply put, is always doing the right thing.

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Leadership Presence and Impact

Developing a commanding presence that inspires and influences others is crucial. This involves honing nonverbal communication, emotional intelligence, and strategic storytelling.

• Nonverbal communication includes body language, eye contact, and tone of voice. But the most effective can even be the simplest of gestures, like taking notes and eliminating distractions during your conversations.
• Emotional intelligence means managing your emotions and understanding others' emotions. With greater self-awareness of your own emotions, you can better grasp and respond to the feelings of your team members.
• Strategic storytelling helps create a vision that drives inspiration, motivation, and action. When people can clearly imagine what success looks like, ideas and innovation flow. They feel compelled and achievement happens from the inside out.

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By mastering these skills, you'll elevate your communication to a new level.

You will transform into a more confident and effective communicator, leading your team with clarity and inspiration, improving productivity, fostering a positive work environment.

And I'll just throw this in… You’ll be the kind of leader that people will follow.

The kind of leader that people will walk through walls for you.

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Always for you,

Elissa

Curious about the workshop replay? Get access to InfluenceIQ: Leadership Communication Mastery Workshop here.

P.S. Leading from the middle is hard. But you don't have to go it alone. Strategic Leadership Lab is the exclusive cohort where you'll get unparalleled one-on-one support and access to curated content to help you tackle the challenges of middle management leadership. Click here to get started now.