When you lead a team, effective communication is incredibly important. As a leader, you need to inspire your staff to take action through clear messages, confidently communicate visions and goals, and provide motivational feedback. In this short BLOG you will find three simple methods to help you increase the effectiveness when it comes to your communication with the team.

Leaders are often too little aware that they are in the spotlight all the time. Every word, every gesture can have a big impact on their team. When communication problems occur with the team, it can also have a direct impact on business results. How do we avoid the basic mistakes and how can we increase the effectiveness of communication?

1. Set the rules

Communication starts when you take on the new leadership role and have to present your vision, priorities and goals. For this reason, it is important to set the rules first. Already when building the relationship with your team, set the principles of cooperation – what are the rules, what is expected and what will not be tolerated. Remind your team regularly and adhere to these principles yourself – if you expect tasks and projects to be completed on time, you will also deliver on time. Regular reminders of expectations are important to reinforce understanding. Research published in the Harvard Business Review confirms that when the message is repeated regularly by the manager, the likelihood of the project being completed faster and with fewer errors increases.

Make sure that you regularly repeat the principles of cooperation that you set at the beginning. This will help you and your team achieve the results faster. Use different means of communication each time, e.g. an email summarising what was discussed after you have delivered your message in the meeting.

2. Communicate your expectations clearly

To avoid misunderstandings, state your expectations clearly. Break complicated messages into sections and present them in a way that is easy for your team members to understand. Try not to use technical or business jargon. If you have a problem making your message simpler, it means you don’t fully understand it yourself. Don’t communicate your expectations too sweepingly – make sure your team knows exactly what is expected of them. If they don’t understand your expectations, they won’t know what to do. Ask your team if they understand the expectations as well as you do and listen carefully to understand.

3. Listen to understand

Experienced leaders know how to ask good questions and listen attentively. Active listening means focusing 100% on the speaker and ignoring other triggers, even our own thoughts and possible responses or comments that come to mind. Do not interrupt, allow the person time to finish their sentence, show that you are listening by nodding, smiling and paraphrasing what you have heard. Experienced managers often have tried and tested ways of doing things. However, if we as leaders want our team members to develop, we should ask them questions and give them the opportunity to come up with the solution themselves.

Remember that as a leader you need to make sure that your communication is effective and clear.