Why Are Communication Skills Important In Management?
Being a manager means that you have to do more than, well, manage people. You need to be able to communicate clearly and build a relationship with your colleagues and employees. If you do not improve your interpersonal and communication skills, you might find that your employees are unable to speak to you about issues they might be facing.
You can invest in a course for mastering business communication which will teach you how to improve your communication skills. Not only will you learn about verbal communication, you will also be taught about emotional intelligence, problem-solving and active listening. All of these are key to building your communication and interpersonal skills. Not sure why you need to be a good communicator? Outlined below are just some of the reasons why this is important to management.
You Need To Give Feedback To Employees
One of the most important aspects of being a manager is that you need to be able to give feedback to employees. This feedback is usually based on their behaviour and performance, and it should always be given in a constructive manner rather than tearing them down for bad behaviour.
If you provide your employees with concise, constructive and accurate feedback, they can work on improving the issues. Insufficient or unclear communication can confuse the issues and make it difficult for employees to understand difficult situations. If you do have to give negative feedback, communicating clearly and with emotional intelligence will help soften the blow. As well as using your ability to communicate, you will need to have strong listening skills in order to understand their viewpoint on the feedback provided.
Productivity Needs To Remain Stable
You might not think it, but managers are key to improving and maintaining the productivity of a company. You need the ability to understand what a project entails and its goals as well as have the ability to translate this into terms that your teams will understand.
Each team member should know exactly what they are doing, when they should be doing it and why they are doing it. And their understanding of this hinges on a manager’s ability to communicate effectively. If your team understands what they need to be doing, then the productivity of your company will improve tenfold. This makes communication an important skill to have when running a team or managing a project. Improved productivity is vital for modern companies.
Relationships Between Departments Will Improve
If the manager of each department in a company can communicate effectively, it stands to reason that the relationship between the different departments will remain positive. Managers have to deal with different teams, which means that they need to be able to articulate the project to different people in an understandable manner.
You will also build trust across each department if they realise that you are easy to communicate with and are always transparent, honest and concise with your communication. Having strong relationships in a company will improve productivity and will ensure that all projects are finished on-time and correctly. Trust between departments can help immensely when there are difficult situations that arise. It can also help to build morale and team spirit.
You Can Solve Problems Easily
Having effective communication can help to solve problems quickly and easily. For example, if a client has asked for a specific design brief and was not clear in what they want, you can relay this to your design team and they can then speak to the client in order to better understand the project.
Being able to problem solve quickly and easily can help with internal issues too. Employees often will speak to managers about problems and will expect answers that can help, which is where active listening and good communication will come in handy. You will be able to listen to your employees, read between the lines and create a solution that is best for everyone involved. Remember that discretion is needed when dealing with internal conflicts involving employees.
It Can Help With Team Building
Team building is an important aspect of managing any group of people. And using their communication skills, managers can help teams set and reach goals, improve overall morale, and encourage the team members to make independent decisions about what steps to take for a project.
Team unity is also important for the success of any business, especially in the creative industry. A team that works as one and makes decisions as one is productive and effective. And this is all due to the fact that their manager has communicated clearly and concisely about what needs to happen. Work on improving your communication skills and you will soon see that your colleagues and employees improve in their productivity, morale and overall efficiency.
The content in this article was provided by Rogerwilco – a South African marketing agency based in Cape Town.