The Benefits of Adapting Your Communication Style to Your Audience
The ability to communicate is arguably the most important skill of leaders across all industries and at any level. Communicate to inspire. Communicate to gain alignment. Communicate to persuade. Unfortunately, most leaders take a one size fits all to leadership communication. Complicating matters further, most leaders (and people) assume that others like to be communicated with in the same style that they prefer. In reality, people have a diverse set of communication styles and preferences. If you want to up your game as a leader, try tailoring your communication style to the audience in place of using your preferred method. Before we discuss the “how to” of adapting your communication style, let’s focus on the benefits of adapting your communication style to the audience.
Why Leaders Should Adapt Their Communication Style to the Recipient
The best leaders learn to adapt their communication style to match that of their team and cross-functional team members as well as customers and strategic partners. Here’s why.
Adapting Your Communication Style Increases the Reception of Your Message
First and foremost, tailoring your message to the audience will allow your message to be heard. How many times have you thought to yourself, why are they not getting what I am saying? after jumping right to the point or laying out all of the facts. Sometimes, the reason is that you failed to adapt your style to that of the audience. If you jumped right to the bottom line and your audience prefers facts and figures, you surely would have failed to make your point. Further, in this scenario, you may have been perceived as being reckless for skipping over supposedly important details. On the other hand, if your team member is highly relationship-oriented, stepping over personal topics and getting right to the point would grate on your team member and prevent you from being heard. The point is we all have different communication preferences and failing to align your style with that of the recipient will impede your message from being received.
Adapting Your Communication Style Shows That You Care
Showing your team members that you care is one of the critical pathways to increase employee engagement. Adapting your communication style to that of your team members shows that you care. It shows that you took the time to notice their preferred style, tone, and mode of communication as well as adapted your style to meet theirs. For example, if your team member prefers lots of data and detail and you move past your desire for speed by providing supporting documents and evidence, that will create connection and show that you care.
Adapting Your Communication Style Fosters Active Listening
Adapting your style to the recipient relies on active listening to diagnose their preferred communication style. Actively paying attention to the words they choose, whether they take time to warm up a meeting before jumping to the agenda, and their use of data. Regularly tailoring your communication style to the audience has a secondary benefit of improving your active listening.
Adapting Your Communication Style Will Rub off on Your Team
The best leaders lead by example. Team members look to their leader not just for words and diktats, but for the actions behind those words. Taking the time to learn more about your team members and adapt your style accordingly will rub off on your team members. If a busy leader can take the extra time and effort (because it does take extra intention and effort) to tailor their communication, so can they.
Adapting Your Communication Style Delivers Better Results
At the end of the day, it’s all about results, right? Adapting your communication takes time and effort, but I promise the payoff is immense. It delivers soft benefits like showing that you care and creating trust and engagement, but it will also lead to better business outcomes. Adapting your communication to your team members will foster better collaboration and innovation, all of which leads to better business results.
Next Steps: Transform Leaders Ability to Communicate with Impact and Persuasion
If you are interested in learning how we can help your leaders and individual contributors adapt their communication style to the audience and medium (e.g. Zoom, Slack, MS Teams, email, etc.), schedule a free consulting call with our team.
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