How to become a better communicator and experience more success
Leadership is influence, and your ability to communicate and connect with others is essential for your success.
Connecting with people is the ability to identify with and relate to them in such a way that it increases your influence with them.
When you influence people, they will follow you and listen to what you have to say.
Communication is a skill like any others that you can train. The better the qualifications you have, the better your result is going to be regardless of what it is.
I bet you have experienced people talking to others, and you could see that no-one was home. The reason is that the communicator didn't connect.
Information is giving out, but communication is getting through.
When you start to talk, the other person will immediately ask himself,
Who are you?
What do you offer?
Why should I care?
If you can consider these questions in your initial interaction, you are off to a good start.
If you are speaking in front of an audience, you should always consider these questions:
Does the audience feel that they can trust you?
Do they feel that you care for them?
Do they feel that you are there to help them?
As a leader, you cast vision, are pragmatic, seek consensus, and appear trustworthy. Four out of these five leadership traits are dependent on excellent communicating skills.
Keep it simple KISS
Less is more, and that is also valid when it comes to communication. A lot of people like to hear their voices instead of listening. They think of what they are going to say while the other one is talking.
You have two ears and one mouth for a reason, listen more than you speak.
The leader often speaks last in a group because he or she would like to hear the opinion of the other first. If the leader speaks first, the other might shift their opinion towards the leader's statement.
Treat others like a 10
If you put a 10 to every person you are talking to, you will communicate accordingly. If you think of a person as not trustworthy and consider him/her to be a 2, you will probably talk down and be condescending toward them.
Help others to succeed.
In any communication, you have to think about what the other person needs and wants. When you have figured that out, you can help the others to get just that.
You can get anything in life you want if you help enough people to get what they want.
-Zig Ziglar
To know what the other person wants, you can begin with the six human needs (significance, certainty, variation, love, growth, contribution). Just by asking a couple of questions, you can get a picture of what the other person wants.
Learn to listen
One of the greatest gifts you can give to another person is to listen to them. And when they feel that you authentically listen, they will find you more charismatic and friendly.
An excellent way to listen more intently to the other person is to talk less and ask clarifying the question. When you ask: What do you mean? It enables the conversation to continue, and the other person can elaborate even more.
Paraphrasing is also the right way of showing that you genuinely are paying attention and making every effort to understand his or her thoughts or feelings.
-Let me see if I have understood you correctly. You say that you…
When you listen to people, you make them feel important, and more people want to be around you.
Sincerity
In communication, the first thing you have to think about is what you are going to say. The be aware of how you are saying it. The best way is to be sincere and honest. How honest you can be depending on how much trust you have established, see the Trust equation.
If you are too honest, the other person or group might think that you come across as impolite or rude.
Read your audience
Learn to read the audience. How do they respond? Do you get through with your message?
Practice your communication skills so that you can be more receptive to the details in the other person's body language or facial expressions.
Then you can adjust your communication during the interaction.
Learn to pick up on your feeling and emotions. They are telling you something about how communication is going. Women are better than men at listening to their feelings, but men can learn also learn this.
Women sometimes say that "This doesn't feel right.
When you can pick up these feelings regardless if they are yours or the person you are talking to, you can alter the way you are communicating and get a better result.
Train yourself to become a better communicator, and you will experience more success.
