Categories
Tags
Archives
Let's talk!
5 Fundamentals of Effective Communication
-
Military communication skills for leading teams and accomplishing goals.
Strong, clear communication is critical to your success as a leader. Whether you’re managing a corporate department, a garage sale, or a military operation, your ability to share information will make the difference between success and failure.
If your teammates don’t understand the objective and vision of your plan, they will not execute it properly. A group unified in its goals and execution will always perform, react, and adapt with greater accuracy than a divided one.
Here is the Operators Association’s guide to the five fundamentals of effective communication. If you apply these principles when communicating with coworkers, teammates, friends, and family, you will immediately create trust, unity, and success.
Communicate Clearly and Consistently
As a leader, it is your responsibility to ensure that the right people get the right information at the right time. If any of these factors are out of place, your team will be misinformed, disoriented, and unsure about the plan's purpose.
Optimally, your teammates should be so clearly and concisely informed that they can execute the mission or task without your assistance. The most effective military and business leaders engage in decentralized command – they explain the objective and allow their team to independently work towards it. This can only be achieved if all team members thoroughly understand the plan's purpose. As a leader, ensuring that your team understands the project is a priority.
Build Trust and Relationships
Having the ability to build trust and relationships as a leader can completely change your team dynamic. Corporate research shows that employees who feel valued and recognized by their leaders perform better, achieve tasks faster, and have improved mental health. Building trust within your teams isn’t just a “nice” afterthought, but it is integral to your group’s success.
When you are in a leadership position, your actions leave an impression on your subordinates. Even making a small effort to personally and individually connect with your teammates can create a substantial payoff in the long run. Put time aside in your day to communicate with teammates. This can include anything from asking them about their weekend to more involved conversations about their beliefs and goals. When you show that you care, you humanize your leadership; your team begins to trust and respect your authority.
Check Your Ego
Many new leaders mistake their egos for leadership. When you communicate with teammates, ensure that your behavior benefits the team and not just your self-image. As a leader, you don’t always have to be the one making plans and giving orders. Allowing your team to take the lead while making decisions can often lead to a more comprehensive plan.
If you’re having trouble making people follow your plan, for example, let them come up with the plan instead. By doing this, one of two things will happen:
1) They will create a plan that effectively achieves the objective
OR
2) They will realize that the situation is more complex than it seems and will follow your plan. Either way, the problem is resolved.
Detaching your ego as a leader is difficult, but it will exponentially improve your communication and strategic-thinking abilities.
Practice Active Observation
Humans are social creatures. While we have come a long way from our days living in caves and using stone tools, we still retain many of our social survival instincts. As a result, subordinates won’t always express their concerns about a potentially flawed plan. While this social strategy often helps avoid group conflict, it can also prevent problems from being identified and solved.
As a leader, it is your job to identify problems – whether or not your teammates voice their concerns aloud. The best way to do this is with proactive observation. Keep an eye out for potentially hidden issues that might be manifesting themselves as insignificant problems. For example, if a teammate is consistently late or absent, there may be a more consequential underlying issue than him simply being lazy. Perhaps he is struggling with his tasks or doesn’t understand his job.
By looking for the deeper reasons behind small issues, you can identify and solve problems before they cause irreparable damage. A subordinate who doesn’t understand his job can be remedied with a 5-minute conversation, but fixing an improperly completed project will take much longer. Communicate with your team often and constantly look for ways to improve its work efficiency.
Click here To get about more info :- special forces selection preparation
Share Goals and Stay Accountable with Your Team
Take ownership of your team’s performance. As a leader, you will be praised for your success; but you must also be willing to accept responsibility for your failures. By staying accountable, sharing goals, and being transparent about your objectives with your teammates, you increase group trust, unity, and cohesion.
Regularly take time to touch base with your group about the team’s goals, your progress towards them, what the unit is doing well, and where it can improve. If something has gone wrong in the group or the team failed to complete an objective, taking responsibility for the problem isn't a sign of weakness. Instead, your subordinates will gain respect for your ability to take ownership without pointing fingers.