3 tips to improve your communication skills as a boss

No matter medium, it can be hard to talk to people. People can be great, amazing, and wonderful. People can also be awful, ridiculous and terrible. If you want to be a better communicator, you need to do more than speak well. Here are 3 ways you can improve your communication skills as a boss.

Assess the situation: Don’t let emotions take over. When faced with a problem, take time to investigate. Your message matters the most, so gather all of the information you can before you decide to act. You can treat the symptoms but more importantly you should get to the root of the problem and solve that issue first. Once you’ve laid out the root problem, you can draw out a map to fix it.

Talk face to face: Sending out a memo to a group isn’t always your best bet. If you’re trying to speak indirectly to an employee through a memo, there’s a good chance that employee won’t have a clue that your message is intended for them. Instead, bring them into your office first thing and let them know what the issue is. If it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, make sure you reassure them of that, but make sure they also know that it’s important to you that they get things straightened out.

Keep it black and white: We’re all human and we don’t like feeling attacked. Make sure when you communicate an issue to an employee that they understand the problem is a business issue and not a personal one. Sometimes the best intentions can go awry. It’s important that your employees feel supported when positive intentions don’t go as planned. Let them know that the issue is a problem with results, not intention.