Communication is the oil that keeps the engine of your organization running smoothly, and it all starts with management.
“I never met a good manager who wasn’t also a good communicator.” Today, more than two decades later, I still remember the conversation well.
I was discussing “what makes an effective manager” with one of our company’s HR executives.
Her point was that, after many years of observing managers in action, and analyzing the attributes of our organization’s strong managers and weak ones, she’d come to feel she could learn a lot by just walking around the operations and noting how much individual managers were – or were not – taking time to talk with their employees.
The best managers seemed to interact regularly, she noted, with natural, frequent conversations. The less effective managers had fewer of these routine interactions. They didn’t seem to want much contact with their employees; she felt there was too much silence. It was as if these managers – the not-so-successful ones – didn’t seem comfortable with their employees, and she believed this discomfort didn’t bode well for positive long-term management performance.
The value of everyday good communication
Her observation was an intuitive way of making an important fundamental point: When it comes to effective management, you can’t overestimate the value of basic everyday good communication.
Simply put, I never met a good manager who wasn’t also a good communicator.
This soft conclusion is supported by hard data from Gallup, as described in Harvard Business Review – making the point that regular daily managerial communication is a vital element in employee engagement.
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The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Predictive Index
