How Can Leaders Hone Their Communication Skills?

Leaders also feel the need to constantly sharpen their communication skills to stay on top. How can they do it? Let’s find out..

Experts believe that excellent communication skills are a key leadership competency. “Communication skills are perhaps the most important competency expected of employees as they move up the ladder. It is a key leadership competency,” opined Suman Shankar, associate director, Cerebrus Consultants. Good leaders are powerful influencers. The power to influence is a direct consequence of a leader’s strong communication skills and therefore, it’s imperative for leaders to continually sharpen up their communication skills.

The initiatives taken up by senior professionals to hone their communication skills are quite different from what an entry level or a middle-management employee would undertake. Senior level professionals might be a little apprehensive to undergo trainings to hone their communication skills. They would generally prefer to go about it the discreet way.

“Apart from attending skill building workshops on topics such as ‘Effective performance conversation’, ‘Conflict management’ and ‘Be Influencer’, many senior professionals opt to work with a coach who supports them in developing their communication skills to enhance their own effectiveness,” stated Varda Pendse, director, Cerebrus Consultants. She believes that today, most professionals are not shy of working with experts to have the ‘image makeover’ that will support them in their career development and growth.

Prof. Dr Uday Salunkhe, group director, WeSchool, highlighted few key ways by which senior management professionals can hone their communication skills:

• The training in communication needs to be related more towards interpersonal skills, demonstrating through handouts, role-plays and videos of workplace conversations of effective and ineffective interaction among different permutation (seniors and juniors, among seniors and among seniors and external agencies). These need to be discussed along with a facilitator to create awareness about the non-technical variety of the language and its need and utility. This will also develop an understanding of what is incorrect without pointing out errors of the participants.

• General reading of novels and short stories.

• Listening to speeches or discussions on the television, radio or the internet.

• Rehearsing general conversations (in the privacy of one’s home) or summarising information/instructions (orally) to be given to employees.

• Practicing talking briefly about oneself/one’s organisation.

“These rehearsals can be quickly recorded and listened to, to check on one’s progress. The person can also rehearse for an actual meeting or discussion to focus to what one has to say and also improve on the ‘how’,” he stated.

He believes that organisation, employees or anyone else need not know what techniques one is using to improve one’s communication skills. If an individual’s professional development requires it, then it has to be done.

Source: JobBuzz.com    through  http://content.timesjobs.com/