What does it truly take to be a great leader? Clearly, the definition of an exceptional leader in today’s business environment has changed quite a bit over the past few years. One of the biggest changes is that the pandemic has caused many people to reexamine their life priorities, including what they want from work – and from their leaders.

Amid the Great Resignation and employees quitting their jobs in unprecedented numbers, the power has clearly shifted from senior leadership to employees. That means leaders need to focus more than ever on truly listening to what their employees want and need, and build a far more genuine and authentic connection than they might have aspired to in the past.

The Top 11 Attributes of Great Leaders

Savvy business leaders have seen firsthand the power of good communication with employees, and how it can drive business success from the inside out.

While good internal communication gets the message out, great internal communication helps employees connect the dots between the business strategy and their role. In other words, when it’s good, it informs; when it’s great, it engages employees and moves them to action. Quite simply, it helps people and organizations be even better.

Since you’re communicating with or without intention, you might as well get good at it.

10 Tips for Effective Leadership Communication

Whether or not you’ve spent some quality-time with a child as of late, you’re likely familiar with the “why” game. No matter the topic at hand, the adult shares information and the child responds with “why?”—it can be a never-ending and sometimes maddening exchange. Still, it does serve an important purpose in development for both children and in the workplace as well.

It’s never easy to communicate difficult information to a group of employees. With today’s distributed workforce, those challenging moments can feel even harder. Though difficult, it’s these messages that sometimes stand out the most in employees minds and can impact morale moving forward. That’s why it’s important to prepare for tough conversations rather than shooting from the hip.

6 Steps to Deliver Tough Messages to Employees

You can start by knowing and applying these six essential steps:

This is the time of year I like to reflect on what’s worked well over the past several months, so I can take what has forward as I plan for the year ahead. If you find yourself with a few extra minutes, take a look here at some of our recent most-read content. There’s a great variety of posts with quick tips and strategies to help you lead and communicate in engaging ways.

Top content ranges from how to create an internal communications plan and when and when not to use email, to advice from leaders I’ve interviewed on showing their human side and building a more inclusive and diverse workplaces. There’s also guidance on how to answer difficult questions from your team, retain employees, communicate in a crisis, and more.

Top 10 Blogs on Leadership & Communication in Q3 2021

Sending along a message or announcement from your boss to your team with no context surely won’t resonate with employees, especially on the important matters that mean so much to driving the business forward.

Make it Relevant for Your Team

Don’t be a copy-cat communicator. Your job is to take information and make it relevant for your employees. Think about how to make it:

Delivering difficult messages is at the very core of dealing with the tough situations many leaders face.

I was working with a leader who was preparing to make some significant changes in his organization’s structure, including people changes. As we talked more, and his eyes welled up with tears, I realized how tough these decisions were for him. In the end, it was the right thing to do—his customers’ needs had changed; the market had changed, and his organization wasn’t set up for success. 

As I often say, “You can’t NOT communicate,” but leaders often figure they can avoid communicating with their teams and just focus on the “important work.” Here’s what leaders don’t realize: They are already communicating whether or not they intend to. It is human nature for others to read into our actions based on their perceptions. And as we know, actions speak louder than words.

Plan Ahead to Prevent Cleaning Up a Mess Later