Want to Build Trust with Your Team? Clear Communication is Key
If you’re a leader, you know that trust is essential to both your success and your team’s success. To build real trust, you need to begin with clear communication. As researcher and author Brené Brown says, “Clear is kind.” In other words, if you’re not communicating clearly, you’re doing a disservice to yourself and your team. When your communication is candid and direct, people know exactly what to expect, which creates a culture of respect and trust.
Accountability Through Clarity
I talk a lot about the importance of accountability, but you can’t have accountability without clear and candid communication. Whether it’s yourself or someone on your team, you can’t hold anyone accountable for something when expectations aren’t crystal clear. Doing this requires more work upfront. You have to sit down and figure out exactly what you’re looking for before the meeting, before the conversation with a team member, before you put up a job posting for a new role.
To paraphrase a good quote: if you have an hour to solve a problem, spend the first 55 minutes making sure you understand what that problem is. Being clear does take more time and effort on the front end, but if you skip this step, you’ll end up wasting even more time on the back end when you don’t get the results you expected.
Follow-Up Is Critical
There are three steps to communicating clearly:
- Be precise and direct about your expectations.
- Use plain and simple terms.
- Make sure they understand what you mean.
Just because you stated something clearly doesn’t mean they heard you clearly. We all come to the table with different perspectives and communication styles. Our different experiences determine our different lenses. As a result, you have to follow up what you say with questions to make sure your message got through the way you intended. Communication isn’t just you stating something once – it’s an open dialogue that ensures everyone is on the same page.
Asking “do you understand?” isn’t enough. You have to follow up with questions like:
- “What’s your perspective on this issue?”
- “If you had to put this idea into your own words, how would you put it?"
- “What parts of this made the most sense to you? What parts made less sense?”
If you’re not used to communicating this way, this type of dialogue might feel awkward at first. Keep trying. It will be worth the effort.
Practical Steps for Leaders
Communication is a two-way street, but as a leader, you set the tone. Model the behavior you expect from your team. Here are some practical ways to do this:
- Be Transparent: Share your thought processes and the reasoning behind your decisions. This builds trust and shows your team that you value their understanding and buy-in.
- Invite Participation: Invite your team to share their responses and perspectives. As a leader, it's important to extend an open invitation to share feedback, especially when their perspectives may differ.
- Listen Actively: Make a concerted effort to listen to your team’s feedback and concerns. When they share goals or expectations, demonstrate what you expect in follow-up dialogues by restating their perspective and asking clarifying questions.
- Use Simple Language: Avoid fancy terms or overly complex language. Simple, straightforward communication is more effective and reduces the risk of misunderstandings.
- Be Clear About Expectations: Clearly define roles, responsibilities, and goals. Make sure everyone knows what is expected of them and how their work contributes to the larger objectives.
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