When you think of a good leader you might think of a likable person that you trusted to lead your team to success and looked out for the interest of everyone while locking down the bottom line. The type of leader that has taken the time to get to know team members, listens to others, and isn’t above effectively explaining their actions and decisions.
These leaders have great communication skills. According to PMI, “Poor communication leads to project failure one-third of the time.” While many Project Managers are organized and can lead a project and its constituents to completion in a set amount of time, some could learn a thing or two in the communication department. Here is what great project managers know about effective communication:
They Stop Being So Professional
This may be the opposite of everything you have ever learned about corporate behavior, and of course there are limits to this statement, but hear us out. Your team will remain as stiff and quiet as you are if you lead them like a corporate robot, but loosen up a bit and everyone will start communicating more effectively.
Make your team comfortable with speaking to you and you will likely become a problem solving, deadline meeting, and project winning group of humans. And you might actually have a little fun at work!
They Don’t Do All the Talking
One of the keys to great communication is being able to stop talking once in a while. Listening takes a lot of practice, especially for those who are natural leaders. If you‘re able to set aside your own agenda and open your mind to the ideas and thoughts of team members and client teams you will be on the fast track to success.
They Explain Themselves
Some of biggest miscommunications come from lack of understanding why. Things your team may wonder: Why are we being asked to do a task? Why is this task important? Why are we doing things differently now than we ever did? Is he doing this because he hates us?
While you may have a very good and thought out reason for doing things, your team may be boiling over with questions. If you don’t properly explain actions to your team they will immediately think you are throwing a wrench in the project because you want to make their lives hell. This doesn’t make for great morale, just tell them why.
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