Guest Blog Post by Joseph Kennard

Many leaders do not regularly receive feedback on their communication effectiveness. Human nature leads many to believe that if they were not communicating effectively, they would hear about it from their team. Well, if communication is dysfunctional, than the dysfunction may limit the feedback received!  If you do not receive regular feedback from your team about your communication style, search it out. Seek to make the team comfortable with sharing feedback with you. Never retaliate if you receive constructive criticism. Ask great questions that will encourage feedback from your team. Paraphrase their comments in order to ensure that you fully understand their feedback. Show respect for their feedback by enhancing your communication technique as appropriate. Feedback is essential to ensure the message transmitted is received and understood. Get feedback from several sources down the line. When disseminated, the message can get diluted.  Like a photocopy of a photocopy, the message can get fuzzy very quickly.

Bottom Line: Encouraging feedback from the team helps to build rapport and show trust. In addition, openness to receiving feedback increases team member confidence in your leadership, as well as in the team dynamic. As Peter Drucker shared with us many years ago, “You can only manage what you measure.” Seek to measure your communication effectiveness via honest feedback from your team. No news is not good news, it is bad communication!

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