How to be More Impactful as a Transformational Leader by Mastering Communication and Engagement.

1. Listen for understanding, not to respond. 
2. Encourage 2-way communication to promote co-creation, belonging, and increase the sense of competence. 
3. Accelerate the feedback loop and add new sources of feedback. 
4. Make the feedback actionable. Explain what are you doing/not doing based on the feedback and why.  
5. Be conscious of how you communicate, not just the content. Your body language and how you show up make a difference. 
6. Focus on enabling dialogue (vs discussion or debate) to develop shared understandings with key stakeholders. 
7. Be intentional with the words you use. They can quickly shift organizational narratives. 
8. Less text, more video in formal comms.  Share short videos (no more than 1 minute). 
9. Listen more (at least 60% of the time). Speak last in meetings. 
10. Do an audit. What comms and engagements can you start, stop, and continue? 
11. Do not include more than 3 key messages in formal communications. 
12. Enable higher quality conversations. It starts with the quality of the conversation with yourself. 
13. Look for gaps in understanding or misalignment across levels in the organization. Develop shared understanding across teams and levels in the organization. 
14. Use a Comms and Engagement Plan to ensure consistency and review it weekly. 
15. When there is back and forth of emails, pick up the phone. Go beyond the content and unpack the real issue with the other person. What core needs are unmet? 
16. Share more stories from employees, and make them ‘heroes’.  
17. Approach tensions, but ask for permission to do this effectively without damaging relationships. 
18. ‘Difficult’ conversations open the door to change and transformation if these are approached with the right mindset and framework. Use this evidence-based model to prepare.
19. Go from expectations to commitments. Expectations are thoughts in our heads, commitments are discussed and agreed upon with others. 
20. Remove the noise. Eliminate comms channels that are not needed. 
21. Expand the ‘system’ to include more stakeholders across the business, regions, your industry, or industries in your engagements. Build more bridges. 
22. Agree on when to use specific channels. For instance, when to use email vs when to use Teams or Slack. 
23. Collect data from all the communications. What insights and themes can you identify?

Which one is your favorite?

Which one can you implement today?