Communication for Connection: Without Losing Your Professional Edge

This is episode 317 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we unlock the secrets of self mastery for leaders who want to elevate their impact in both leadership and life. Your journey to being your best so you can give your best starts here and now, your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Welcome. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast. I am so, so excited to be here with you to bring you this topic today because I think it will make a big difference in so many ways that you interact on a professional level so that you're not being two different people, really trying to box or divide your life, but really being an authentic version of you across the board, meaning in your family, in your relationships, your close intimate relationships and in the professional setting. So what we're diving into today is communicating for connection while staying professional. What is communicating for connection look like in the workplace? And still staying professional while getting the most out of your communication skills or your leadership skills, or staying connection connected to the people you really want to create with, collaborate with, progress with and work with. So let's dive into this. I've got so many great nuggets. Not only are we going to go through the communication styles, but also the risks of communicating for just information exchange versus communicating for connection, as well as what the research says about bringing that kind of emotional space into the professional space. And finally, I'm going to give you the three things that are so foundational for connecting with, communicate for communication with connection. Mixing up my words. Here we go. So let's do this. First of all, this topic is very specific. It's about communicating for this relationship building instead of just for information exchange. I really wanted to find that because sometimes we get into this notion that we believe we've communicated effectively, we believe we're communicating well, but something's missing or something didn't land or there's seems to be issues in the context, in the relationship, in the working partnership. So why does that usually happen? It's usually because the communication comes down to this just transaction, a transaction of information instead of building the relationship by these other characteristics of really great communication, which involves trust, vulnerability, authenticity, this emotional connection when we're communicating. So first of all, to really get clear, we want to communicate for connection. We want, we want to do that to build relationships. By building those relationships, we're going to have a better working relationship and professional environment or environment across the board in any category of your life. When we look at this, there are clear communication styles. What are those Styles. If you don't know these already, they might sound familiar, but we've got assertive communication. The great thing about assertive communication is that it considers other people, it respects other people. When we're communicating in this style of communication, we understand that other people have their own beliefs, their own styles, and we encourage this. We encourage open dialogue while we're still being very clear about what we're getting across. So it's a fantastic. It's the most efficacious way of communicating. However, the other three styles of communication tends to creep in when we don't realize it. We might think we're doing assertive communication, but then we become passive. So the second one is passive communication. This is where we end up avoiding any sort of conflict. So we don't realize that we kind of fall into this passive communication because we're avoiding conflict. But what happens is that we have an expense. The risk is that we're losing our own rights or we're not addressing our own needs. When we come, we become passive in our communication. The next one is aggressive communication. Now this style, most of us would think of aggressive communication as yelling or we're just being rude, perhaps, but it can still be aggressive because we are not paying attention to someone else's needs, or we're only focusing on what we want, not what someone else's. What someone else wants. And what happens is that it damages the relationship. Sometimes we think we're being assertive, but we're actually being aggressive because we're not considering the other party's communication or their needs. And then the last one, you've probably all heard of this one, and it's the passive aggressive style of communication. Who hasn't used some sarcasm here and there? Who hasn't had a little jab in a way that just is a little bit underhanded? Now, we're not being our best selves when we do this. And we've all probably done it at some point, some point or another, especially when our energy is low or we've been frustrated and things haven't been working out the way we want. So this looks like both a passive and aggressive, as the descriptor, as the name describes, passive aggressive communication. And it's characterized by things like sarcasm or even denial of problems and even disguised insults. So this is one we really want to stay away from because it becomes very toxic. And if you start to use this in a certain professional context, then it's sending the message that that's okay. And it's typically not okay. In a professional environment. So that one really kind of creeps in and becomes problematic over time. So again, assertive communication. Ding, ding, ding. Five stars on that one. Passive communication. We've got aggressive communication and passive aggressive communication. All right, so what do we look at now? We've got some risks here. The risks of doing the transactional communication, the information exchange, without this kind of connecting communication. There are some problems in professional environments and there's research that backs this up. This is what happens. So if we only do superficial interactions versus an emotional connection, what happens is this is going on so much more right now because of our digital communication, namely WhatsApp, Slack, text messages, you name it. There's so many frequent interactions, frequent exchanges that are happening via a digital platform. When this digital communication happens, there's so much missing from the emotional side of things. So what happens is that we're not connecting on a human level, we're just exchanging the information. So there was a study published in Psychologic Science and they found that communication that lacks emotional engagement, especially in digital interaction, leads to feeling of loneliness and disconnection. This, the researchers highlighted that the face to face communication, which includes emotional cues, fosters deeper connections and that communication is so much more efficacious than just transaction or information tracing. So the insight here is that the social bonding that happens with these emotional communications are triggering parts of our brain, our amygdala and our prefrontal cortex for social bonding. Now we'll go into a little bit more here, but the social bonding is the thing that we actually want. We're not seeing this in a workplace environment, but we want trust, we want relationship building so that you've got a really amazing team for your working environment. And that's what's happening when we socially bond, when there's an emotional connection in that transaction of information. And that happens typically face to face. It can happen on video meetings, but when it's just text based, we want to be careful because it's going to lead to less of that connection, less of that social bonding. So we don't want too much of that. Of course it's going to be more efficient. Of course it's going to happen. This is our day and age that we live in. However, make sure that you are giving yourself a ratio, giving yourself some in person, on the phone or in video communication. So there's more emotional engagement. We can hear tone, we can see facial expressions, more emotional exchange instead of just information transacting. Okay, so that's one of the risks of just information exchange. Versus trust building or relationship building. The next one, this little one is important because it really provides the deeper connection and it's empathy and connection. There's a study in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, and it demonstrated that empathy significantly predicts relationship quality, particularly in leadership and workshop workplace environments. Empathy fosters trust and deeper interpersonal relationships, making information focused communication less effective. So when there is a deeper connection, the information can get passed more effectively because we have the interpersonal connection. So the data on this says that empathy was found to increase perceived trust by 45% just by being empathetic. Mark this one. Remember this one, because by being empathetic, it's going to mean that there's greater trust with the person you're communicating with. That's important. So let's go on to the third one. And this is trust and loyalty. We want to build on this. So the research published in Harvard Business Review, Neuroscience of Trust, shows that trust in relationships is primarily built through authentic, empathetic and emotionally intelligent conversations. These communication styles, when communication is purely transactional, trust erodes, making it harder to foster commitment and loyalty. So here's the data here. This looks like companies with high trust environments report 50% higher productivity, 74% less stress, and 76% more engagement. This was from a study done in 2017. Now, we've had a pandemic since then. However, you know that you could see these things being even more important now because we've become more digital, we've become more technologically dependent. So if that's the case, we need this even more now. So number four is miscommunication. Here's another risk of this kind of transactional communication, information exchange, miscommunication and conflict. When we don't have an emotional insight to the information that's being exchanged, we can miscommunicate. It's so easy to do when there's not tone, there's not expression, there's not an understanding of the other person. So here's what this research has said. This is in the Journal of Applied Communication Research and it highlighted that miscommunication often arises when there is a lack of active listening. Again, I'm going to go ding, ding, ding, because this is going to highlight some of the key things we need in communication. So when there's a lack of active listening and emotional engagement, the study showed that people tend to misinterpret messages when the communication is stripped of emotional nuance. When we talk about emotional nuance, we're talking the, the escalation in our, our Tonation in our voice, the raise of the eyebrows, the opening of the eyes. Further, the expressiveness in how we emphasize certain words. So much of that happens in our emotional reliance of what's going on for us. So this is the thing that we can reduce right there, our own miscommunications. Why? Because we don't have to just do information exchange. So 60% of workplace communication failures are attributed to lack of clarity and emotional understanding. Get that? 60% of workplace communication failures are attributed to lack of clarity and emotional understanding. All right, we're going to go one more risk that happens when we don't have this emotional connection with our communication. And it's research from MIT's Human Dynamics Laboratory. They found that the most successful teams communicate in ways that build trust and relationships, not just information exchange. Teams that engaged in emotionally rich communication were far more productive and innovative. Creativity. How many of us need creativity and innovation in the workplace or even in our homes? Somebody who's going to take initiative, think of something inside the box, that's what's needed. And when we're in an environment where there's trust and emotional engagement, that's more likely to happen. So teams with a strong focus on relational communication had a 35% higher levels of innovation and problem solving capability. Go figure. This is amazing stuff. And we don't typically realize it. Why this is the next part. Because we're believing, I believed this for a very long time, that we lose some level of professionalism if we have more emotional connection. So if the emotional connection is higher, then is the professionalism lower? That's what I was thinking. And I've encountered this in so many different leaders where they really box themselves into, I'm being professional, I'm at the workplace. And they really limit themselves in that emotional connection. So here's what I want to answer with this. This is what the research says about professionalism, specifically with this emotional connection. And it's a strong concern because leaders who equate professionalism with emotional detachment. That's not what the research shows. The research actions shows something different and it's that the experts, their opinion suggest that sharing emotions appropriately, we're talking an appropriate context, can enhance leadership effectiveness and deepen trust without compromising professionalism. So here's what this looks like. Emotional intelligence. I've referenced emotional intelligence before and the person who really worked on this, his name is Daniel Goleman. And this work, he started before 1995, but it really came out a lot in 1995. It emphasizes that leaders who acknowledge and manage their emotions effectively are seen as more competent and trustworthy. This is not just an IQ thing, it's an EQ thing. This is the emotional quotient, the emotional intelligence. So what does this look like, sharing emotions? You want to get specific here? Because sometimes an example is needed to understand, well, how do I stay professional and share emotions in the same space? What does that look like? So shared emotions doesn't mean over sharing. It doesn't mean spilling every nasty detail about how awful something was or venting frustrations. So venting to a coworker is not what we're talking about. It means being transparent about how a situation is impacting you or your team in a really controlled, professional manner. So you can still share the emotion in a controlled, professional manner. That is the key. For example, I feel frustrated in the delay, but I'm committed to finding a solution. Now, you get really specific about the context or the situation, but what it's doing is it's conveying the emotion while maintaining the professionalism. That's what we want. We want to convey the emotional state and still stay professional. Second example of this. This is when you're contextually sharing emotions. Remember, it's gotta be appropriate. We're not gonna overshare like we just said. But leaders should share emotions that are relevant to the situation. If there's just this information exchange, especially when something big has happened in a company or something that people know is impactful, if the emotion is an exchange, then people become uncertain, like what? What something doesn't match. Here the person is saying something really impactful, but they're not bringing the emotion that goes with it. What is up, that's what's going to be subconsciously going on for the people who are listening. So this is the scenario where you want to convey the emotions in a way that are relevant, that motivates or clarifies rather than overwhelms for the other person. So get that distinction. It's motivating and clarifying for the other person, not overwhelming for the other person. You're not dumping your emotions onto them. So, for instance, showing frustration over a missed deadline can highlight the importance of the task. But publicly venting about personal matters or publicly venting over and over about the deadline of frustration would cross this professional boundary because it becomes unproductive and it isn't helpful for the colleagues. It doesn't support something that's contributing for the situation that everyone is building or working toward another one. This is an impact on team dynamics, and that's what I was just alluding to perfect segue here. Research from MIT's Human Dynamics Laboratory found that emotionally expressive leaders create more cohesive and high performing teams. Teams led by emotionally open leaders experience greater collaboration, greater trust. Would this translate into better performance, more productivity? This is the fantastic environment that most teams really strive for. Finding that kind of connection, chemistry, in order for a team to work well together is magical because when a team works well together, and this could be in the work environment, this could be in a social setting, this could be in your family. When a group of humans work well together, magical things happen so much. Something greater is created than the individual results. This what it does really. It creates environments where team members feel safe to express themselves. This psychological safety boosts morale, fosters innovation, and encourages proactive problem solving. So I have worked with people who really do not support psychologically safe environments. Now that might be because they're in a startup, they are grinding hard. They are not focused on everybody's needs. They are focused on one very specific outcome in a very specific timeline with massive pressure. I've seen those environments, I've worked in those environments. I can promise you that if you want overall sustainability over the long haul and the best results, you really want an environment of psychological safety because then you're going to get the most out of your team. When there's not an environment of psychological safety, people are terrified to share what they think, their ideas, how they feel about something, and then you don't get everybody's input. You really can miss a lot when there's not that psychological safety in a team. So that's what happens in the team dynamics. So this is a great opportunity to build the relationships, to create an incredible team. So professionalism doesn't mean suppressing emotions. It means managing and expressing them in a way that builds trust. It really shows authenticity, drives performance. And then leaders who are sharing those appropriate emotions show their own emotional intelligence. This fosters stronger connections. It doesn't mean there's emotional overload, but rather controlled intentional communication that enhances effective leadership. So what I want to leave you with today are really the three things that you want as foundation in all communication. These are the ones that if they're not there, you know, you're likely to have some level of information exchange, something that's really not optimal. These three things are in your communication at almost all times. It's going to improve everything in your life, not just your workplace, your entire life. So what does this look like? A is active listening skills. Active listening skills. We can do another Five podcasts on what those skills are. But these are key. Focus on your own listening. Focus on your own ability to get in touch with what's going on with the other person. When you can actively listen in any context, it's going to build that empathy that we talked about earlier that really contributes to what you want in the relationship. Building in the trust, building in the ability to have a great bond in the environment that you're in. So active listening, things like paraphrasing, asking clarifying questions, body language that supports that. Active listening. There's all kinds of things. Active silence, when you're really showing focus but you're allowing them to speak. Listening well, those are examples of active listening. Last second one is clarity and conciseness. So this is C. So we've got a. Active listening C clarity and conciseness. This goes so far. This really is important in assertive communication where you're not giving a entire story around everything. The highlight reel is what you're going for. If there's something that needs to be conveyed, something important for another person. Keep it to no more than three things. Typically one to three things are is what you're is all you are going to focus on in a highlight reel. One, two or three things. More than that. It's too many people can't keep hearing and processing everything else. So keep it to the clarity. If you have to convey a message, can you keep it to one minute? Can you eliminate ums and likes and kind ofs? Can you eliminate all the filler words? Can you keep the clarity with non verbal cues? By staying very focused in how you have your eye contact, your face, your tone, your, your voice volume, are all of those things supporting your clarity and conciseness. So the second thing is clarity and conciseness. And the third thing is your empathy and your communication. We already demonstrated that a little bit in the act of listening. However, empathy and communication is more than that. It's when we are actually speaking, we are showing that we care about what's going on for them. We're showing that we have empathy for their situation, how they feel, what they're going through. And we can show that in so many different ways. We can do it with perspective, taking, emotional validation. We can separate the person from the problem. We can do all kinds of things that really empathize with what's going on for them and what they might be experiencing. Very, very powerful. So these three things, A, C, E, ace, active listening, concise and clear communication and empathy. Those three things are foundational in all communication. However, they really will support what we're talking about today, which is communication for connection, communication for relationship building instead of just information exchange. So this particular communication, I really hope has emphasized a great relationship building example, a great relationship building opportunity, not only for me and you, so you get to know what I believe in matter, and hopefully I'm conveying some things that are especially important to you, but so you can have the skills, so that you can have the tools, so you can have exactly what you need to go forward and feel empowered in the environments that you're in. So go do it. Have a great rest of your day. Rock your week. You are Empowered if you enjoy listening.

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