Tips for Effective Managerial Communication

It is essential for employees to communicate effectively with each other for better understanding as well as increased productivity at workplace. Employees doing everything on their own are generally overburdened and eventually fail to deliver their best.

Effective managerial communication enables the flow of information and knowledge among employees in its desired form. Managers need to interact with their team members to extract the best out of them. Problems remain unsolved if employees do not communicate with each other. Discussions go a long way in reducing confusions and also improve the relations among employees.


Let us go through some tips for effective managerial communication at workplace:

1. Remember a managerials task is not only to sit in closed cabins and shout at subordinates. He needs to interact with his team members on a regular basis. Speak to your colleagues more often. Find out what they are upto? Treat all your team members as one. There is absolutely no harm in taking lunch with your team members. This way you tend to discuss lot many things apart from routine work.
2. Promote the concept of morning meetings at workplace. Morning meetings help you interact with your team members on an open platform where everyone has the liberty to express his/her views. Communicate with your team members and help them plan their day. Let them come out with their problems. Walk up to their workstations once or twice in a day.
3. Increase your listening skills. A good listener is always a good communicator. It is really important to listen to the other person carefully before speaking. Interrupting a conversation breaks the momentum and the message loses its impact.
4. Working in a team leads to effective managerial communication. Employees working in isolation hardly interact with their fellow workers and superiors. Make sure your team members discuss things amongst themselves and work together. Instruct them to keep you in the loop as well. The employees must mark a cc to their immediate reporting managers to keep them updated of the latest developments at the workplace.
5. Master the art of writing emails. Also train your team members how to write an official mail. There is a huge difference between a personal and official mail. The subject line needs to be relevant for people to open the mail.
6. Do not call your team members one by one for any kind of communication. Address them together.
7. Think before you speak. Make sure whatever you communicate is relevant. Avoid using complicated words and terminologies in your speech. The message has to be clear and precise for effective managerial communication. Be straightforward and communicate clearly as to what you expect out of your team members.
8. No communication is complete unless the message is understood clearly by the recipients. There should be absolutely no room for confusion in effective communication. Once you are through with your speech, give some time to your team members for them to ask whatever they have not understood.
9. Never communicate at a noisy place. Choose conference room, meeting rooms or any noise free zone for communication.
10. Create an environment. An effective manager sets up a system where employees can express themselves, whether in public or private, and establishes ground rules for communication. Perhaps that means an open door policy or scheduled times for department-wide conferences. As long as you create an atmosphere of respect, employees and management will be encouraged to communicate. These management skills will go a long way in making the workplace a productive and positive one.
11. Be assertive. Assertive communication is not aggressive communication. Rather, it is the ability to say what you think in such a way that your views are expressed and the listener’s opinions are also heard. It utilizes language that gets straight to the point and eliminates conversational fluff. Avoid tiptoeing around an issue, and deliver your message honestly and sincerely.
12. Express yourself non-verbally as well. Use body language to reinforce your message. Many experts agree that effective communication skills are enhanced when proper body language is used, such as sustained eye contact or emphatic gestures. If you are listening to an employee’s complaints, be sure to keep eye contact with her to show you are interested and listening. When you are delivering a serious message to a group, use proximity and gestures to improve the significance of your words.
13. Be Honest. Pass on information to your team members in its correct form. Playing with information and data tampering lead to ineffective communication. Communicate directly with your team members rather than appointing middle men.
14. Speak Relevant. The choice of words is really very important in verbal communication. Do not use slangs and abusive words in your speech. Loose talks must be avoided at the workplace.
15. Be Focussed. Know what you intend to communicate. Managers must prepare their speech well in advance before addressing their team members. Do not communicate just for the sake of communicating. Deviating from the topic only confuses recipients. Managers must ensure their team members are able to understand them well.
16. Be Confident. You must believe in yourself for others to believe you. Learn to stick to your words. It is really important for effective managerial communication. Never be low on self belief.