During challenging times, you may start to commit more leadership communication mistakes. These are the moments when you need to be at the top of your game but fall short, when sharing information.
Perhaps you need to rally the troops at an important time or need to communicate a path through an uncertain future. As a leader, you know you need to say something but you’re not sure what. And if you say the wrong thing, you could create more problems.
Some choose to say nothing, which is a mistake. To help you better navigate tough conversations, like inflation’s impact on your business, consider these things to avoid.
Silence Makes People Nervous
Employees can tell if things aren’t going well. However, they may not know the extent of the problem and may make incorrect guesses about it. This can lead to other challenges, like retention issues.
As a leader, you need to give people an idea of what’s happening and what you’re going to do about it. This doesn’t have to be a detailed plan.
Sometimes complex ideas are best explained through similes and metaphors.
For instance, “Right now, for our business, it feels like we’re wearing two left shoes. You can walk around but it’s not comfortable. We hope to have the right shoes for our feet in the next six months.”
Don’t Compare Experiences
During challenging times you may want to show empathy with your employees, as they may be experiencing stress related to inflation. Be careful if you share personal stories. These may be designed to show a shared sacrifice but may represent a leadership communication mistake.
Here’s an example: “My family had to cut back our spending recently. We had to cut our trip to Hawaii from ten days to seven.”
While the reduction represents a significant change, it may not be a relatable sacrifice, as many of your employees may not be able to afford a Hawaiian getaway, for any period of time.
Make sure your examples are relatable to everyone in the audience. Otherwise, you may become a villain or a snob in their eyes.
There’s No Next Step
When work conditions are uncertain, people like to do something. Give them a next step or something they can control.
This doesn’t have to be a big assignment or something that will solve all of your problems.
You can just say, “To help us during this uncertain time, keep doing your job at a high level and look out for you coworkers.”
While this is more of a pep talk, it helps remove the virus of uncertainty from people’s minds.
Remember to Listen
One of the biggest leadership communication mistakes sees you stop listening to others. You may be so busy with your problems or putting out little fires that you lose touch with your team and your employees.
This isolation is not good for your mental health and you may starving yourself of valuable information about your business.
Have ongoing processes where you talk to leaders in your organization about how things are going and what they’re hearing from employees. While no one likes to hear bad news, not hearing any is worse.
You may want an employee perspective that doesn’t go through the filter of management. What works well is to have one employee, serve as a spokesperson and you meet with that person on a regular basis.
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