Communication is the golden thread that runs through every element of our business and every aspect of our role as the leader of the team. It’s fundamental to our success.
And good communication will always be aligned with our values – reflecting who we are as a person. Reflecting what’s important to us, the lines we won’t cross when it comes to how we want to live our life, run our business, show up in the world.
Maybe it’s being kind
Maybe it’s always being straight with people
Maybe it’s always trying to find win-win solutions to problems
Sounds like it should be easy, but of course it isn’t.
Not communicating in line with our values
We all do things at times that go against our values and leave us feeling annoyed with ourselves.
You know what I mean… you wanted to be kind but then you found yourself gossiping about someone and having a laugh behind their back.
Or you had the opportunity to help someone with some really straight-talking feedback, and you fudged it, laughed it off, let them carry on under-performing.
When you do something that goes against your values, you feel it in your gut. I’ll bet you’ve caught yourself saying ‘It just didn’t feel right’ or ‘I knew I should have listened to my gut’ – well, that’s your values talking.
Conversely, when you communicate in line with your values, you feel really good about yourself.
Self awareness enables more authentic communication
You can’t really be a good leader or a great communicator if you don’t know yourself; if you don’t know what your values are, what you struggle with, what your triggers are, what gets you ‘in the zone’.
Being self aware helps you:
- to be true to yourself
- to be more open and authentic in your communication
- to understand your successes and failures
- to recognise what you need from your team to complement or make up for the skills you have or don’t have.
How to develop self awareness.
At least once a week, take time to think and reflect.
I know, it sounds almost too simple, doesn’t it.
It’s a lesson I learned some time ago from a fellow business owner. He told me that every week, he set aside ninety minutes to reflect on the previous seven days, asking himself questions like:
– What was I aiming to achieve?
– What went well, and why?
– What didn’t, and why?
– Did I do anything or say anything that wasn’t in line with my values?
– What lessons have I learned about myself this week?
– What am I going to do better next week?
Of course many managers don’t take time to think. Some might even consider this sort of exercise a waste of valuable time; too fluffy or navel-gazing maybe.
But the investment of that ninety minutes, or even a third of that time once a week, could be the difference between being an average manager, an average communicator or a great one. In my book, that makes it worth the effort.
Do one thing: give the reflection exercise a go and see how you get on. I would love to hear.
NB Your Communication System is key to building your Business Rhythm, and is step 5 of a 9 step roadmap that we lead our clients along, to build the business-critical systems that will make their business scale-ready, and free them from their day to day operation.
To learn more about the 9 steps that will move you from slave to scale-ready, visit:
https://www.mariannepage.co.uk/chaos-to-consistency.html
