Why Communication Is a Leadership Skill, Not a Soft Skill

Research & Sources / Communication & Influence

Imagine an orchestra of excellent musicians with no conductor, or with a conductor who waves the baton differently every evening. Each violinist plays beautifully. Together they make noise. The conductor does not play a single note, and yet the whole concert depends on how clearly they communicate. That is why communication is not a soft skill for leaders. It is the job.

The “soft” label is misleading

In many companies, skills are sorted into two boxes. Hard skills: finance, technology, strategy, numbers. Soft skills: communication, listening, feedback. The words suggest that one box is solid and the other is a bit fluffy, nice to have if there is time.

For anyone who leads people, that sorting is upside down. A brilliant strategy that nobody understands is worth nothing. A precise budget that the team does not believe in will not be met. Every hard skill a leader has only reaches the business through communication. It is the pipe through which everything else flows.

What the research shows

Gallup, which has measured engagement at work for decades, found that managers account for at least 70 percent of the differences in how engaged their teams are. The same research found that communication is a big part of the reason: employees whose managers hold regular meetings with them were almost three times as likely to be engaged as employees whose managers did not.¹

Three times. Not because of a new pay system or a better office, but because someone regularly sat down and talked with them.

Google looked at the same question from another angle. In a large internal study called Project Aristotle, its researchers asked what makes some teams more effective than others. They expected the answer to be about who is on the team: the smartest people, the right mix of skills. Instead, they found that how the team worked together mattered much more. The most important factor of all was psychological safety: whether people feel safe to ask a question, admit a mistake or suggest an idea without being made to look foolish.²

That idea comes from Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, who showed in her research that teams with more psychological safety learn more, because people speak up about problems instead of hiding them.³

And psychological safety is created almost entirely through communication: how a leader reacts to bad news, how they ask questions, whether they listen to the end of a sentence.

Three things clear leaders do

They say the same thing many times. A leader often feels they have explained the priority. They said it once in a meeting, wrote it in an email, maybe put it on a slide. In their head it is clear. For the team, it was one message among hundreds that week. Clear leaders repeat the important things, in the same words, until the team can say them back. If you are bored of saying it, the team is probably just starting to hear it.

They explain the why, not only the what. “Please finish the report by Friday” is a task. “Please finish the report by Friday, because the client decides on Monday and this is our best chance to win the project” is a reason. People who understand the why make better decisions when something unexpected happens, because they know what the work is for.

They listen more than they talk. A leader’s words carry extra weight. When the boss speaks first in a meeting, many people quietly adjust their own opinion. Clear leaders ask first and speak last. They let silence sit for a few seconds. They ask “what am I missing?” and mean it.

Small habits, big effects

Most communication problems in teams are not dramatic. They are tiny and constant, like a radio that is slightly off the station. You can still hear the music, but there is crackling all the time, and after a while everyone gets tired.

Here are some of the most common crackles:

• Decisions made in a hallway conversation that half the team never hears about.
• Priorities that change without anyone saying that they changed.
• Feedback that is saved up for the annual review instead of given in the moment.
• Meetings that end without anyone knowing who does what next.
• A leader who asks for honesty and then looks annoyed when they get it.

Each one seems small. Together they decide whether a team plays like an orchestra or like a group of people practising in the same room.

For entrepreneurs and executives alike

For an entrepreneur, the team is often small and close. That makes communication feel unnecessary, because “everyone knows anyway”. But as soon as the company grows beyond a handful of people, the things that “everyone knows” start to drift apart.

For a senior executive, the challenge is the opposite. Messages travel through several layers before they reach the people doing the work, and every layer changes them a little. Being clear at the top is the only way to have something recognisable arrive at the bottom.

What this means for you this week

• Write your top priority in one sentence and say it, unchanged, in every team conversation this week.
• Add the “because” to every important request.
• Speak last in your next meeting. Ask for views first.
• Hold one short one-to-one with each direct report, even fifteen minutes. Ask: “What is getting in your way?”
• Thank the next person who brings you bad news. Out loud. That is how safety is built.

The conductor never plays a note. The music still depends on them.

Sources

1. Harter, J. & Adkins, A. (2015). Employees Want a Lot More From Their Managers. Gallup. gallup.comManagers account for at least 70 percent of the variance in engagement; employees with regular manager meetings are almost three times as likely to be engaged.
2. Google re:Work. Understand team effectiveness (Project Aristotle). rework.withgoogle.comHow a team works together matters more than who is on it; psychological safety was the most important of five factors.
3. Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. doi.orgThe original research showing that psychological safety supports learning behaviour and performance in teams.