Vision
Leaders have to be able to consistently share their vision for their organization, as Davis Sluss explains in “Stepping into a Leadership Role”:
You must win [your direct reports] over, and you should have a strategy for doing so that you can translate into a cogent set of talking points that guide — rather than script — all your early conversations with them. … [M]ake sure your pitch provides information on competence and change, experience and expectations, and your overall leadership approach.
Nancy Durate’s article “Good Leadership Is about Communicating Why” explains why vision— which lives in what Sluss calls your pitch— is important. Leaders convince (rather than compel) their teams to act, and “If [team members] don’t know why a new action is necessary, they won’t be motivated to help you. They’ll continue with their current comfortable behaviors, thank you very much.” The why behind your vision, decision or plan is vitally important. Your why offers context and emotional resonance and becomes the foundation for what you want to do and how it will be accomplished.
Message
Sluss shares two interpersonal strategies for sharing your pitch with a new team. As a leader in your organization, you probably have a good idea already of what your vision is, so here I am going to focus on how to communicate that vision effectively and consistently—messaging—to your team, as well as some common challenges new leaders face. One thing to understand immediately is that messaging is more than just what you send out in an email or share in a presentation. It does include your explicit comments, but it also includes everything from how you share your comments to how you walk down a hallway and greet your team to how your actions match (or don’t) your statements. To advance your leadership vision, you must carefully craft what you say, how you say it, and how you live it.
In Person Communication:
Prior to the pandemic, many of us defaulted to face to face as the most meaningful and effective communication. We met in person to interview last-round candidates, to provide performance reviews, and to share good and bad news. Because most people are so familiar with this style of communication, we don’t always prepare what we plan to communicate; we wing it. And as a result, we’ve walked away from meetings uncertain whether our team understood the significance of our conversation or convinced they heard something very different from what we (thought we) said.
One way to avoid confusion or misinterpretation is to use narrative: just good solid story telling, with a beginning (statement of challenge), middle (proposed solution), and end (why this action), will help your audience retain your message and will bring your moral, values and plan to life. Paul Smith’s excellent book, Sell with a Story, offers insight into what makes narrative work. Although his focus is on (external) sales, his vivid accounts of the power of a compelling narrative can work within teams as well. I urge all leaders to read his work and begin using narrative to carry your message forward.
Virtual Communication:
Times are changing, and you will inevitably be doing more messaging virtually. But, as Joel Schwartzberg discusses in his excellent article, good leaders don’t treat virtual communication as a slightly more high tech version of in person communication:
… communication tactics that work well among colleagues in a conference room may not translate seamlessly to Brady-Bunch-style quadrants on a computer screen. Organizational behavior professor Andy Molinsky recommends seeing virtual meetings as an entirely different context, not simply an in-person meeting or a class on a screen.”
Schwartzberg has several very practical tips to minimize the disconnect of virtual meetings.
Non-Verbal Communication:
In “Great Leaders Understand Why Small Gestures Matter,” Bill Taylor urges leaders to consider how your actions support— or undercut— your explicit messaging. He writes,
Small gestures—whether signage or speech, body language or handwritten messages—can send big signals about who we are, what we care about, and why we do what we do. Even (maybe especially) in this age of digital disruption and creative destruction, never underestimate the power of a shine with soul or a well-crafted card.
Communication is far more than words; it’s actions as well. Leaders must walk the talk. Behaviors either reinforce the message or mute it. As a leader, you’ll experience more scrutiny—as you know from your own days as a team member, teams spend a lot of energy reading the boss’s tea leaves (is that grump a bad night’s sleep, or is everyone getting fired in our next meeting?). In this context, it’s really important to be aware of what your actions might be saying, as well as how outside factors might be shaping your non-verbal communication.
Messaging in Challenging Contexts
There are at least two predictable communication challenges every leader will face, and below I share some tips for dealing with each.
New Team Members:
Don’t leave staff onboarding to HR! Leaders must play a role to support new employees because they are the organization’s most critical resource. Leaders must take time to meet with new hires individually. During this session, you can provide a history lesson, begin to set contextual understanding, explain how the team handles challenges and setbacks, or describe what a win looks like.
This great article explains the value of committing to a more engaged onboarding for new employees.
Communicating Change:
Shifting corporate (or internal team) strategies requires new messaging. The leader should publicize and explain any changes, with opportunities for questions and conversation. (The elements you identified in your change model analysis can be a great source of talking points to explain the why.) Leadership will probably have to state and restate (and restate) the new vision as employees come to grips with the change and develop new questions.
Change also requires leaders to support your teams and organizations through the transition, especially if it’s a significant shift. I love William Bridges and Susan Bridges’ Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change (25th anniversary edition).
Leaders should use the pronoun I often (e.g., “I see it this way”/ “I like to approach the problem this way”). Using I magnifies that the leader’s message is personal and important and that the leader is actively engaged in the process.
Vision Pitfalls
One vision and messaging pitfall loops back to one of the main leadership challenges: delegation. Ann Sugar’s article, “How to Tell If You’re Delegating Too Much — and What to Do About It,” points out that a leader’s vision is too important to leave to others. Consistent, purposable, powerful [vision] must come from the leader.
The biggest over-delegation risk for leaders is leaving the vision or culture of the company to others. Of course, most leaders don’t think they’ve done this. Instead, they believe they’ve delivered and communicated the vision innumerable times. And yet, their teams are confused and missteps occur with delivering the work on a consistent basis. If you’re noticing that output on projects has stalled, there’s excessive disagreement on tasks and process, or unexpected and inconsistent behavior among team members, it may be a sign that you’ve over-delegated the vision to the point where team members feel they’re interpreting it or making it up on their own. A particularly obvious clue is receiving repeated questions from different team members asking you to clarify the vision.