Seth Dobbs (he/him): How clearly do you communicate and how do you validate that that is in fact the case? When you think about communication, do you put equal weight in being understood and in understanding others? Hi, I’m Seth Dobbs and this is the Principle Driven Leadership Podcast where I share principles of leadership, along with examples of how to apply them to how make you be the best leader you can be.

These principles are based on my years of experience as an executive leader in building organizations and teams and coaching others to become leaders themselves. And I believe that not only can anyone develop leadership skills, but that everyone can and should develop leadership skills. I think they’re essential in helping you achieve your best in whatever way you might be trying to make an impact.

And that’s because leadership skills help you better influence others to effectively create durable results. And leadership is a journey. The step we’re taking today involves seeing communication as a two-way street. And that you as a leader are responsible for the success of both directions. So for this episode, I want to talk about Alexei.

Alexei was a manager at a mid-size tech company leading a team responsible for developing a new software feature that was crucial to the company’s upcoming product launch. He was known for his technical expertise and had been promoted to a leadership position because of his strong individual contributions.

However, Alexei struggled with communication and often failed to effectively convey his ideas to his team. So the project started with a high level meeting where Alexei introduced his vision for the new feature. He had spent weeks developing the idea in isolation, meticulously detailing every aspect of the functionality in his mind, and he felt his vision was very clear.

But when it came time to explain it to the team, Alexei’s presentation was just a confusing mix of jargon, disjointed thoughts, and unclear goals. He rattled off technical specifications, assuming everyone would understand his vision around them without needing further explanation. And when team members ask for clarification, Alexei would just brush them off saying: “just trust me.

It’ll all make sense once you start working on it”. So he provided little room for questions or discussion, and the meeting ended with the team feeling more uncertain than informed. So as time and the project progressed, team members began to notice flaws in Alexei’s plan. Some of the technical requirements were unrealistic given the timeline, and others conflicted with existing systems they had to interface with.

So the team tried to raise these concerns during follow up meetings, but Alexei was just dismissive. He assumed that the problem was that they just didn’t get it yet. He told them not to waste time on what ifs, and if they kept following his plans as documented, it would all make sense in time.

Now one developer, Maria, suggested a simpler approach that could actually save time and reduce complexity of what they were building, but Alexi quickly shot it down without probing to better understand her suggestions. The team gradually stopped offering feedback because of this, realizing that at most, although it would get from Alexi, was a simple thank you,

And then him restating his main points. As deadlines approached, it became clear that the project was in trouble. The team was behind schedule, and the feature was plagued with bugs and inconsistencies, and then the final stretch to release. Alexei held more frequent meetings, but they were no more effective than before.

He continued to speak in vague terms, rarely providing clear guidance or actionable feedback, and when the team expressed concerns about the state of the project, Alexei just nodded and then restated his points. When the new feature went into final testing, the results were disastrous.

Numerous issues were reported, and the feature failed to deliver on its promises. User testing feedback was overwhelmingly negative. There’s a lot of miscommunication or perhaps more specifically a lot of missed communication in this project. I started off this episode saying that communication is a two-way street.

The important principle here is that as a leader, you own both understanding and being understood. Alexei didn’t take the time to make sure the team understood his ideas, nor did he take the time to understand their concerns.

If he had done at least one of these things, results might have been a little bit better. Doing both would’ve gone a long way to averting disaster. More importantly, it’s likely that open communication could have created something even better and more successful than what Alexei had initially envisioned.

Now, there are a lot of good communication techniques out there that you can use, and some of which I’ll cover later in the season in episode five, but for now, I’m going to keep it simple in support of the principle. Don’t assume communication is a one and done kind of thing. New ideas take time to gel and to be understood.

Repetition is key, particularly if you don’t just repeat the same words every time you repeat it, and you can ask people to restate what you said in their own words and be specific in it if it helps. Such as: “I said, there were three key reasons we’re taking this path.

Can you tell me what they were?” And when listening to others do the same thing, read back what you heard in your own words. I do this a lot and it catches confusion and misunderstanding early in the process. And there are a lot of things that are unsaid in meetings and in other work discussions for all sorts of reasons.

People don’t want to appear foolish. People are afraid to question others because of power dynamics. There’s all sorts of things that go on. So to be an effective leader, you need to take responsibility in breaking through those barriers. And remember that asking questions is not a sign of ignorance.

It’s a sign that you care enough to make sure that you really understand. So don’t be afraid to ask others questions if you don’t understand them, and encourage them to ask questions of you. Now, you know you’re starting to get this principle right when you and your team have a greater openness when no one is afraid to ask questions.

And even at the busiest, most hectic times, you make sure you take the time to understand others and to be understood. And remember, communication should have an outcome. You’re not just speaking or writing words for the fun of it. As a leader, particularly when communicating a vision, you are trying to drive action.

You’re trying to drive change and results. And the great thing is if you miscommunicate, you can always try again to be clearer and to better understand others. Because the thing is, it doesn’t matter how great your idea might be, how brilliant your vision is, if you can’t communicate it successfully. If you want your vision to catch hold, you have to be responsible for getting others to understand it, and you have to own finding out why people might not buy into it or what problems they might see with it.

Anything else is just casting the potential of your success to the wind and hoping for the best. And if the direction is not clear to those you lead, those winds will not be favorable.

Also, you need to realize that understanding your vision doesn’t just happen overnight. People forget things, and I can assure you that most people do not constantly assume that they’re on the wrong path and go to reread what’s been documented or re listen to what’s been recorded. You need to check in.

You need to reconfirm and ensure mutual understanding in order to be successful. If all you’ve done is provide a one-time explanation and assume everyone got it, how can you be sure people are actually getting out of it what you want them to get out of it? That’s not leadership. That’s just a meager hope.

Good communication is the cornerstone of good leadership. Whether you’re laying out a multi-year vision or just trying to take the next small step of a project, clarity is key and clarity only comes from the ongoing work of ensuring mutual understanding.

And as a leader, you need to make sure you understand others and that you yourself are being understood by them. Again, anything else is just leaving things to luck. So I want you to think about what conversations have you had in the past few days that you feel you walked away having lingering doubts that you and others were in sync?

And what can you do today to go back and clarify? Thanks so much for joining me. Please subscribe, follow, comment, and share with a friend if you liked it. Send feedback and questions to contact@pdlpodcast.com and I’ll try to address a few towards the end of the season and join me next time where I’ll talk about how important it is to leverage a team to fully achieve your vision.