Bill Fleig

Read "Thanks for the Feedback" by Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen. Game changing advice that will help you navigate this in new ways (and a pleasure to read to boot!). I like to point out my own flaws and failures and stories of learning and growing to encourage a culture of feedback, introspection, and comfort with flaws. We all have them, after all. If your team feels like they can give you feedback than you can be sure they will feel comfortable receiving it from you. Especially when it is given and received as a means of growing personally and as a team.

As someone who has led creative, engineering, strategy teams I know firsthand how important it is to modify your communication style. But it would be silly to categories it by role, as there are all types of people within a given discipline. Some folks want/need to connect personally, some want zero chitchat and want to get down to business instantly. The challenge is more in navigating team conversations across these kinds of differences. First things, first... Ask them how they like to work, how they like to be communicated with. Ask them if it's working for them. You have your needs too, of course, but all things between people require navigation and compromise.

I have succeeded and failed at this throughout my career. It can be incredibly hard to bite your tongue and take the time to listen before you share a POV when you are a leader in a fast-moving business. But when you succeed, and your team finds its voice, so long as they are brave enough to be honest with you and their peers you will learn an enormous amount about where they are and what they need. And, usually... you need to ask more questions. The first answer is usually just the beginning of the answer.

In my opinion, transparency is the number one rule in communications for any healthy team to build trust, camaraderie, and investment. Full stop.

Agreed. As a leader who wants to move quickly it is all too easy to speak too soon (or react too quickly) and try to move the needle. But doing so eclipses opportunities for team members to speak up freely and confidently. Working towards Simon Sinek's model of "the leader speaks last"...

Senior leaders need to recognize that more junior members may not feel comfortable poking holes in ideas in every context. There is inevitably too much deference and too little truth-telling. Work to make spaces where folks can speak freely, have that thinking shared 'up', and responded to thoughtfully.