As leaders of people and businesses we need to understand the power of good communication can impact on the business and how poor communication can really cause problems for the entire business. Communication is more than just talking and leaders need to recognise this if they are to develop into exceptional leaders. For the record, sending an email or a text is not communicating in my book, although it is one of the elements that you can use in the process of smart communications.

“A common issue with communication is the communicator often assumes that they have achieved their aim before they actually have!”

Chris Batten – Writer & Rainmaker

CB’s Top 4 Tips on the communication for leaders:

Tip 1 – Over communicate. Where communication to your team and customers are concerned it is better to over communicate than keep people in the dark. This is particularly true where customers are concerned; if you’re not talking to them, your competitors will. Communicate often with your team, don’t let rumour and gossip be your key communicators.

Tip 2 – Cascade your message. Get in the habit of communicating important messages more than once using more than one method and in some cases more than one person. Email is not communication but is one of a few methods to be used in conjunction with others. For example I might tell my team member either face to face or on the phone, then follow that up with email and then ask the manager to communicate it too, better this than silence!

Tip 3 – Tell the bad stuff too. People are not stupid, they will find out what is going on. Don’t avoid giving bad news, treat people like intelligent adults and tell them the bad not just the good. If they find out anyway you will lose respect. If you keep it quiet the information will leak out anyway and gossip will take over!

Tip 4 – Visit the trenches and ask questions. As a leader, visit the trenches often and ask smart, open questions about your people and how they are feeling, use this as an opportunity to praise, coach and inform.

My final general points about communication are as follows; Communication is about listening too, not just waiting for a space in the conversation to get your point across. To be a great communicator you have to be a great listener. When you’re communicating a task to be done, make sure you ask yourself this question: “Have I given them enough information to enable them to do the job?” If the answer is no keep talking! Conversely if you are on the receiving end ask yourself: “Have I been given enough information to do this task?” If the answer is no, start talking!

More on Leadership

I think it is true to say that few leaders give enough praise, this might be because they’re not sure how. I think the main purpose of praise is to reinforce the right behaviors and also to motivate people to keep trying and keep succeeding, here are three tips that will help to promote those responses:

• Be Specific. When you are giving praise just saying thank you is not going to be enough. You need to identify the specific accomplishment and describe the impact it had on you. For example: “Thank you for staying late and making sure the presentation was error free; it really made a difference and helped me close the deal.”

• Use actions not just words. Once you have praised someone specifically, follow it up with am important gesture of confidence. Let them lead the next presentation, or send an email to the company acknowledging the hard work, or even ask them to train others to be able to act in the same way!

• Never praise before a critique. Token praise uttered before criticism will sound empty. It will only undermine the value of the praise you give on other occasions.

That last point is so important that I want to tell you again. I call it my "Windows and Mirrors" management. The bad leader looks in the mirror when things go well and congratulates him or herself. When things go bad they look out the window for someone to blame. The good leader looks in the mirror and takes responsibility when things go bad. They use the window to find people to congratulate when things go well!