The Power Of Intentional Communication: How To Make A Lasting Impact

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Have you ever been in a situation where the response you received to a question or statement indicated that what you intended to communicate was clearly not what was communicated?

As leaders, we may have all been in this situation before. If we have, it’s important to reflect on what we learned from the experience.

In the future, do we need to be more careful about how we communicate?

Or better still, do we need to be more intentional about our communication?

What Is Intentional Communication?

Intentional communication means communicating in a way that is received well and has a lasting impact across the organisation, team, or with an individual.

“The reason is that while most of us think we’re intentional about our communications, we’re actually rarely so. The reason is that we spend a lot of time thinking consciously about what we’re trying to say, but we don’t often spend much time thinking about how we’re going to say it.” - Nick Morgan

Intentional communication can benefit our working relationships, the way we speak, and our own awareness of our emotions. But how can we become more intentional in our communication? We share some guidance below.

Intentional Communication In Relationships

A key aspect of developing a coaching approach to intentional communication is building relationships, rapport, and trust. Trust-based relationships are vital for the power of intentional communication because where there is trust, there is a bridge for positive perceptions.

Although we can be as intentional as possible in how we communicate in all our conversations, in low-trust relationships, we are likely to communicate differently than we intended. For this reason, we need to build relationships and trust before communicating important things. This is required even more so when working in a hybrid or remote way.

When seeking to build trust-based relationships, here are some tips to consider:

• Be vulnerable and share your opinions and feelings.
• Make sure not all communication is task related – some communication can be personal.
• Take a genuine interest in other people.
• Mean what you say, and say what you mean.
• Keep confidence; don’t talk about people negatively.
• Be kind and demonstrate benevolence.
• Live your values and purpose as much as possible, and admit when you have missed the mark.

The Importance of Giving Yourself Time to Think

When communicating intentionally, it's important to value your thinking and give yourself time to think. If you think before you speak, you will speak with far more intention.

Here are some coaching questions that you can ponder to improve your thinking:

• Whose thinking is most valued in this organisation, and who is rarely asked to share their thinking?
• What is the purpose of this communication?
• What is the intended outcome of this communication?
• What impact do we want to see this communication achieve?
• How would that look if we were to clearly and concisely state the answers to these questions?
• What unintended communication might happen?
• What is our method of communication, and what does using that method communicate to the people we are communicating with?
• If I am communicating in person, what does my body language say that my words do not?
• What are our emotions when we write or give this communication?
• What are we feeling?
• In what ways are our feelings also being communicated?
• How does this align with what we intend to communicate?

If you take time to think, you can avoid communication that is off-the-cuff, lazy, overly brief, and based on your immediate perceptions, feelings, and bias.

Becoming Aware Of Your Emotions

As a leader who wishes to capture the power of intentional communication, it is essential that you have emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence includes being self-aware of your emotions and having the ability to bring the right emotion to each situation.

To take advantage of the power of intentional communication, it is important not to suppress or mask your emotions. Not only is this personally damaging, but it carries the risk of possible outbursts or other regrettable actions.

Consider the following question:

When you communicate, how often do you consider your chosen method of communication?

Whilst you may not think your chosen method of communication makes a difference when you communicate, you communicate your emotions in many ways. Therefore it's important that each different mode of communication you choose matches emotionally.

For example, you may initially communicate an important message through email to ensure everyone receives the information simultaneously. Video messages, team briefings, open forums, and individual conversations may follow this.

The emotions communicated may vary slightly in each of these different modes, as is the nature of communication and the different modes. But any large variation in perceived emotions will undermine the intended message.

For the power of intentional communication to make a lasting impact, we need to be aware of our interwoven emotions, decide if these are the best emotions for this communication, and then make sure that we communicate with those emotions consistently.

Daniel Goleman’s work on Emotional Intelligence leads the way in this thinking and is an excellent aid for intentional communication.

Contact Us Today

At The Leadership Coaches, our courses for developing a coaching approach in organisations help support all the points in this blog when looking to release the power of intentional communication, including building trust-based relationships.

Book a free consultation by calling us today if you want to find out how our expert coaching services can support you in capturing the power of intentional communication.

Written by Ian at The Leadership Coaches.