Lack of Communication: 10 Traits of Terrible Leadership

In this episode, I share a leadership lesson straight from my "didn't get it right" playbook. A lack of communication nearly derailed a new initiative, but 90 minutes of intentional dialogue turned it around. Tune in for practical tips on how to communicate effectively, foster unity, and lead your team forward!

• Transcript

  This morning’s episode comes directly out of the ‘Shane didn’t get it right playbook’. In this particular incident, I had been working with one of my teams to test out a new product which was going to mean our events went to the next level. I didn’t think that anyone in my other teams would be concerned and so we went ahead and trialled it without communicating this to my broader team.

  Well, I was wrong. When the broader team started finding out about it, there were concerns. Now because I invite feedback, one of my team came to me.  In this time I was able to apologise for my lack of communication and I was able to speak about how this product helped us to achieve our vision. Because there was good relationship, this team member was quickly appeased.

  I then wrote an email to my teams, this took about another 30 minutes. I offered an emergency team meeting for anyone who wished to discuss it further. Very few attended this emergency meeting, however it was really beneficial for the concerned who came. This meeting took about another 30 minutes.

  In the end, about 90 minutes of communication and my team came to understand the change and they understood how it was beneficial.

  Communication is absolutely vital to good leadership and it doesn’t need to take a lot of our time and effort if we are proactive. Yet, it is not often the first thing we go to when we are facing problems within our teams. In fact, many of us shy away from the potential conflict and we site that it is because ‘we shouldn’t have to explain ourselves to our subordinates’, because it’s a ‘waste of time’, or ‘it shouldn’t concern them’. The problem here is that the longer concerns fester, the time required to fix relationships grows exponentially.

  Here are a few things that you can do if you want to delve a little deeper:

  1. Create a Communication plan when making change.  Be active, it doesn’t have to take much. But a plan will make sure you are communicating actively to all your stakeholders.

  2. Be visible. Make it a priority to be available to listen and spend time with your people all the time not just when there are issues. When people feel like you are aloof, discontent grows in the ranks. This leads to unfixable issues and people who are less likely to communicate with you.

  3. Acknowledge and encourage people’s emotions. I cannot think of a single time when an issue did not pull on a person’s emotions. Listening to and recognising these emotions goes a long way.

  4. Make it a Dialogue. If someone has a concern, I always ask questions first. This helps me to answer the right questions rather than going off on my own tangents.

  5. Finally, bring it all back to your Vision. Hopefully your team is with you because they believe in a shared vision. We are far more likely to move ahead even if uncomfortable, if we understand that the change is inline with our collective vision.

  Hopefully today you can learn from my mistakes!  Communicate, communicate, communicate!