In April I was invited to be a key note speaker for the AFS Women in Metal Casting breakfast. We had almost 200 in attendance and it was a superb and enthusiastic crowd.
My message was that there is a significant difference between leaders and managers, and to truly be effective in the workplace and drive positive results for your teams and organizations you must focus on not only “managing the processes” but you must certainly focus primarily on “leading” your people. 

The cornerstone of leadership is the ability to communicate. And communicate we must!
As leaders we only have two tools at our disposal to communicate and provide direction to our teams: (1) our words and (2) our actions. Both need to be aligned for us to be effective leaders and produce results.

The most effective means of leadership through “our actions” is encompassed in the timeless phrase, “lead by example.” Basically, you model the behavior you want to see in your team members. When you lead by example, you don’t just push team members toward excellence; rather, you actively demonstrate that excellence. You guide and influence them by actions not words.

Then what about our words? Being an effective communicator is the cornerstone to our success as leaders. In my personal leadership journey from a cadet at West Point, army officer, builder of leadership teams, and now a leadership instructor, I have found the best leaders are easily the best communicators. 

Think about your own journey. Think about the best leaders you have ever experienced or witnessed. 

Parent? Coach? Teacher? First boss? I guarantee that one of the most common denominators in your “best leader” is the way they communicated with you.

What About You?

OK, let me ask you a question and have you do a little self-reflection: Are you a good communicator?

This is the very first question I ask the participants during my leadership training courses.
I’ll ask for a show of hands and usually the class will have about 70%–80 % saying “Yes, I am a good communicator.” You have to admire confidence!

In truth, the percentage is significantly lower.

I recall a survey that was done by the Tom Peters Company in the 1990s. The same Tom Peters who is regarded as a management “guru” and wrote the influential best seller, “In Search of Excellence.”

Approximately 5,000 executives were surveyed and were asked the very same question: Are you a good communicator?

These executives responded resoundingly: We are just not good communicators, we are excellent communicators, with almost 90% giving themselves this pat on the back.
Peters didn’t stop there. Peters then surveyed almost 25,000 direct reports of these execs and asked, “Is your boss a good communicator?”

The response from the direct reports was astounding, almost laughable. This survey said that only 17% of the executives were good communicators. 

Why do you think that is? Where is the disconnect ? That is a huge disparity.

It has been found that the No. 1 problem with leadership communication is exactly as George Bernard Shaw noted: “The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.”

Hope Is Not a Method

Illusion indeed. Too often, we believe that we have communicated and our message has been successfully received. We believe the receiver(s) know and understand exactly what we said and will respond accordingly. 

And why not, we ask. We are awesome communicators! We would not have been promoted to leadership positions without being good communicators!

Let me remind you of the aforementioned Peters survey. You may be falling into the same trap. 

Assuming or hoping that you are a good communicator is the perfect recipe for leadership disaster. Hope is not a method. Assuming is not confirmation.

Effective leadership communication is very difficult. It must be practiced. You must be disciplined in your approach. Two issues compound this difficulty.  

First, studies have shown that 75% of the people we live and work with communicate in different ways! They listen differently. They understand differently. They like to be approached differently.

Second, technology has provided us with many new ways to communicate: Text, instant messaging, email. Prior generations never had to deal with so many options––it boggles the mind. This ever-evolving technology is our best friend and worst enemy. Instantaneous communication can boost our efficiency or create significant data overload and misunderstanding.

How do we deal with this? How can we make our communication effective and the best it can be?

Use the Three Cs

From my personal experience I have derived my “Three Cs” of effective leadership communication. They are: Clear, Concise, Confirmed.

Let’s look at the Oxford definitions:

Clear: easy to perceive, understand or interpret, transparent, unclouded.

Concise: succinct, brief but comprehensive.

Confirmed: to corroborate, authenticate, validate, to remove any doubts. 

And now let’s unpack what they mean to leaders and our own communication:

Clear. It is essential that as a leader we must be as clear as possible in our communication.
If we are clear by definition our messages will be easily understood and easy to put into action to drive results.

Before sending any message, a leader needs to pause and think:

• What is my intent? 
• What are the most important things I need my team to understand?
• What action needs to happen as a result of this communication?
   

Then and only then, you must craft the message so to be as crystal clear as you can.
Clarity in our messages is essential but only the first step.

Concise. The human mind processes information in this way, 1, 2, 3, 4 … a lot. Once we are presented with more than four pieces of information, the mind virtually shuts down. This is known as information overload.

As leaders, we must do everything possible to avoid information overload and keep our communication concise.

In communication, less truly is more. Concise communications are easy to digest and understand.

By saying less and being direct it forces the speaker and listener to focus on what is truly important. This increases the chances of being understood significantly. 

The truly important is what we absolutely need to get across to the listener. Anything else is superfluous and clouds the real intent. (Remember rule No.1: Clear.)

Short and comprehensive are not mutually exclusive in leadership communication. You need to be both.

Whether you are using the most effective method of communication––face to face, or the myriad of other means available––phone (Yes, it’s still appropriate to use it as a phone), text, email, IM––saying too much will inevitably damage your efforts.

Let me remind you of one of the most famous examples of concise.  On November 19, 1863, two politicians spoke to an assembled crowd in Pennsylvania. The first talked for two hours and not a soul remembered what he said. The next spoke for two minutes and delivered a speech of 272 words which lives on and are immortalized today. The second man was President Abraham Lincoln and the speech was the Gettysburg Address. 

Concise, indeed.

Confirmed. Here is the third and I believe the most overlooked “C.”

I’ve seen other rules for communication where the word consistent is used but I believe consistency is part of behavior and not necessarily communication.

The following phrase exemplifies the concept of confirmed and I know it to be 100% accurate: “I don’t know what I said until you tell me what you heard.”

We believe we are good communicators. We believe we are clear in our words and message. We believe we are concise and focus on what’s important. But we don’t know what we have transmitted until we ask!

Ask them! Ask them to repeat back in their own words what they heard. 

It is essential that we verify direction before we go too far down a potential wrong path.
We must use “brief-back” techniques and ask team members to tell us what they heard and understand. This assures that we are headed off in the right direction and can accomplish the mission.

In military jargon it’s called the “confirmation brief,” where the team member repeats back the most important parts of the  message.

• This is what we are doing, the specific task or assignment.
• This is why we are doing it.
• This is the purpose and intended outcome.
• This is what success looks like.

This is an amazing dynamic and it heads off the primary cause of failure and mistakes: misunderstanding!

It has been determined that approximately 80% of conflict and mistakes are the result of simple misunderstanding and not using simple brief-back methods.

When we approach our team members and ask for the brief-back we must assure the approach is from a position of trust and confidence. 

It looks something like this: “Joe, we just had a critical conversation and I want to make sure we are absolutely on the same page to avoid confusion. Please, tell me what you heard in our conversation in your own words.” When you use this technique and find your own voice, your team members will become comfortable and trusting, and it will become second nature. Results will follow.

Mastering the art of the brief back and confirming your communication will set you on the road to being not just a good communicator but a great one. 

One More ‘C’—Commit

Many effective communicators have risen through the leadership ranks by using the Three Cs without even knowing it. Now, you know what they are and how to use them.
Let’s make the commitment from this point forward to always remember the Three Cs and put them to use in all our communications. This will close the “knowing versus doing” gap.
I guarantee that by being disciplined in your leadership communication and putting this simple principle into action, you will experience exponentially greater results.
After all, isn’t getting results what leadership is all about?