Aligning Conversations

It seems like there’s a new leadership book that comes out every second that people rave about.  The 17 Skills of the Effective A- Bloodtype Leader, Create the Greatest Organization in the World in 6 Easy Steps, How to Effectively Lead Between the Ages of 33-35, ad nauseum.  But I rarely see a leadership book that focuses on one of what I believe to be the most important skills as a leader: communication.

The reality is that as a leader, a HUGE part of your success has to do with your ability to communicate well with those you lead.  Take someone with strong leadership skills and pair that with strong communication skills, and you have a great, long-term leader.  Take someone with strong leadership skills and poor communication skills, and you have a poor, not respected leader.

If you want to lead a team, organization, or even your family well, you have to be able to have healthy conversations often. Healthy conversations don’t necessarily mean fun, non-conflict type conversations.  Sometimes healthy conversations involve sharpening one another and making sure each person on each time is aligned properly.  I want to take a few days and unpack a part communication for leaders that can make or break your effectiveness at leading others: what I call an Aligning Conversation.

Aligning Conversation: A conversation that serves to nudge or redirect the path of someone you are leading in order to keep them performing in a way that increases organizational effectiveness.

Just as our cars frequently need alignment for one reason or another, keeping our teams aligned and headed the right direction will determine not only if we reach the correct destination, but also how efficiently we’ll do so.  No matter how gifted people are, they occasionally need to be redirected.  Think about the last conversation you had with someone you led in which you attempted to redirect them for any reason.  How did that go for you?  Did it produce long-term results?

I believe this: the way you handle aligning conversations will largely define the tone for the entire relationship.  It’s that important.

Yet it’s something we all struggle with from time to time.  The good news is this: even if you struggle at having healthy aligning conversations, you can learn to do it well, and you need to learn to do it well.

The great thing about learning how to have healthy aligning conversations is that it is immensely practical.  You can use it in any part of your life, from parenting to management, and you’ll make everyone you have influence with appreciate and respect you even more because of it.

So the next four days, I’m going to share 4 critical elements to a healthy aligning conversation. I’m working to put these into practice in my own conversations, and I hope they are helpful to you as well.

 

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