In order to be a great leader and project manager, you must be able to communicate effectively with your team. Dealing with employees isn’t rocket science, yet it’s far away from being a simple task. However, successful leaders understood that in order to reach their full leadership potential, their team must always understand the company’s purpose.
Moreover, each employee should have a positive rapport with his or her project manager. If you want to lead your team towards great achievements, you need to establish an individual rapport with your employees. Taking the PMP prep course will enable you to obtain the PMP certification and carries with it a high level of prestige within the project management and Information Technology (IT) community. You can do so by leveraging your communication skills up to the point where the employee truly understands your expectations.
In today’s post, we’re discussing 7 communication “secrets” that great project managers implement on a consistent basis in order to build rapport and improve their employees’ standards, motivation, trust, and performance.
1. They Truly Know and Understand Their Employees
In order to communicate effectively with a person, you must understand how that person thinks. You can do so by directly interacting and asking questions such as:
- What are your biggest motivations?
- What are your problems?
- What are your needs?
- What are your expectations?
You can go on with more questions until you figure out the employee even more. Another option would be assessing their performance and their biggest struggles. Look for indirect clues that are reflected from your employee’s performance.
2. They Establish Trust Before Anything Else
Trust is a very important factor that needs to be present in every company. There are more levels of trust that need to be taken care of, yet there’s one that you should focus your efforts primarily.
You must establish trust before leading any sort of team. Just like when there’s no love when there’s no respect, it’s the same with the workplace. People only follow people that they fully trust. Want to improve your communication? Be trustworthy and impose respect!
3. They Never Take Things Personal
Taking things personally is never going to help you become a great project manager. Employees say a lot of things. They have a lot of remarks, and they’re mostly directed towards the leadership positions (you).
When your employees are dissatisfied with your performance or they’re directly blaming you for bad results, never take it personally. Understand where their frustration is coming from, and approach the situation lightly. That means that you should first find the reasons for which your employees have said those things, and go straight for the solutions. Project managers that hold grudges should never be project managers!
4. They Actually Know How to Listen
Listening – such a rare trait nowadays. Everyone’s trying to impose their own opinion on the matter without even assessing the opinions of others. Great project managers are also great listeners. They understand that in order to offer the best solutions for their employees’ problems, they need to understand their employees’ mindset and issues.
Once you begin listening to someone without allowing any counter argumentations to pop into your head, you’ll start “getting more” out of every conversation. Learn how to actively listen to your team and reap the benefits of a better communication and a better rapport.
5. They Are Open-Minded
Open-minded project managers seem to achieve more things in less time. The reason is quite simple: instead of only counting their ideas and solutions, they’re allowing their team to actively participate in this process. Listening to your employees’ insights and putting them through your “filter” is the best practice you can adopt if you wish a faster progress.
You might be surprised that some of your employees’ ideas are better than yours. Their solutions might represent a better choice your organization’s long-term success, so staying close-minded is only going to sabotage your company’s potential.
6. They Talk About Solutions Instead of Problems
Do you want to solve a problem or just complain about it? A project manager’s role is to manage the well-being of the project. When problems kick in, some managers jump straight to complaints. They summon the employee that has done something wrong, and they’re putting the emphasis on the problems that caused the happening.
Well, great project leaders are doing it differently. Instead of initiating a conversation about the issue that produced the damage, they’re taking the time to find solutions for the problem. They mostly provide solutions instead of putting more salt on the wound.
7. They Are Motivated and Energetic
In order to motivate your team to be more productive and efficient, you need to lead by example. You can’t expect people to follow you if you’re always pessimistic, lazy, and comfortable. Instead, you must present yourself in quite the opposite way.
You want to create the feeling that you’ve always got it, that you’re struggling to get better, and that you truly care about the company’s purpose. The traits you’ll manifest will definitely have an impact on your employee’s mentality. Give them something good to imitate, and you’ll obtain something good out of them!
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Conclusion
Your business performance is heavily influenced by your employees’ performance. Your employees’ productivity can be improved through various actions. Follow the insights and principles you’ve learned in this article and see where that leads you.
Remember: knowledge without implementation doesn’t lead to results. Therefore, ensure that you’re making small moves towards improving your communication ways and your team’s potential.