Communication and Leadership
Great communication skills produce amazing leaders and strong leadership for business and career growth. What is your opinion on whether communication or leadership emerges first in a great leader? The one certainty is where there is excellent leadership, we know it cannot exist without superior communication skills.
“The art of communication is the language of leadership.” James Humes
When is the last time you were given training or developed your communication skills? It’s not exactly the leading star in the spotlight of curriculum or mandatory requirements of eligibility; however it can make or break a company, leaders, and a career professionals advancement.
Communicating with people is a part of everything we do at work, in business, to create our own networks and community, and to build long lasting relationships with our customers and partners. It even impacts our happiness, health, stress level, productivity, and success. Yet, we take for granted we know it, we got it, and think its simple. So what else is there you could possibly have to learn about communication or how could it improve and impact the current leadership in your company or for you as a leader?
Why are Communication Skills So Important?
Communication is the ability to connect with others, to create trust in your company or team, collaborate with others, relay information or a message that both inspires and engages your audience, and it also builds a community or culture that comes together for a common cause or belief. If that is not powerful enough, learning communication skills based in neuroscience empowers you as a leader to create conversations that stimulate the trust hormone thereby engaging the Pre Frontal cortex, our executive brain, where innovation, decision making, empathy, problem solving, and forward visioning occurs.
If you are a career professional or business owner, communication empowers you with skills to connect at a deeper level and partner with others to create, develop, and increase your impact and progress.
How can Leaders, Executives, and Entrepreneurs Improve their Communication?
I gave a presentation not so long ago and shared a quote that talked about how the biggest misconception around communication is the illusion it has occurred. We think we are communicating when we are talking to others, but true effective communication is reaching into and understanding our listener’s reality. The listener is your coworker, your team, your entire company, or all of your customers. The intention we communicate with may have a different impact than intended and it is only through conversation and asking questions to understand ,when we are truly communicating.
How to Improve Communication
Communication appears simple, but is actually as complex and diverse as the people you interact with. Part of what makes communication challenging is our brains and each individuals experiences and reactions along with a multitude of personalities and approaches. Communication is not a rubiks cube that can be solved, it is dynamic and ever changing.
So how can you become a better communicator and lead with strong communication?
- Develop Level III Conversation skills that creates partnering with others (C-IQ)
- Learn how your communication can evoke chemical reactions of trust or mistrust and how to manage these through conversation
- Listen without judgement, to respond, or to accept or reject (Judith E Glaser)
- Discover the blind spots in communication and how we all have them
- Develop the art of co-creating with others through conversation
- Learn ‘We-Centric’ Leadership communication skills (C-IQ Judith E. Glaser)
- Build confidence on how to effectively communicate when there is conflict with the ability to Up Regulate and Down Regulate positive partnering emotions around trust and negative protecting emotions with distrust
- Understand how the brain and you respond to threat and how to manage your own reactions in communicating with others
- Promote conversations that activate the Pre Frontal Cortex where your team and company will prosper from the executive functions of the higher brain where innovation, visioning, empathy, decision making, and problem solving live.
- Realize the importance of communication and conversations and how they build relationships and how relationships build both leaders and a culture, and how both great leadership and culture creates the company and its success.
Empower yourself and your team or company with great communication skills. Conversational Intelligence, C-IQ, is the neuroscience of communication created with over 35 years of research by Judith E Glaser and was rated as one of the top 5 business skills in 2016. Increase communication as a leader, in your company, with your team, in your home, and see how powerfully and positively it impacts every relationship you have as well as your career.
To learn more about bringing C-IQ to your company or organization or for private leadership communication coaching sessions, contact Jody for a free consultation at [email protected] or 604 448-2410.
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