When it is straight from the heart, it touches people

As I was leaving for the day and got in to the car, the person who serves tea at the office walked up to me and thanked me. I looked up with a question on my face. He said, "Sir, I was stunned when you thanked me and mentioned my name in the meeting in the morning.  I felt very happy."  I felt a huge tug in the heart as this young man smiled and walked away from the car. There was a spring in this feet.  All I had done was recognize him in front of a team.  It had left an indelible mark on him.

Few days later I received a mail from someone who had attended the same meeting that day.  It said (and I quote), "It would be amiss if I did not write about an event I witnessed recently. During XXX's (name removed by me) coffee talk, what impressed me most was not what XXX said. It was not any of the questions or XXX's answers. What stands out most vividly in my memory was the part where you thanked the team and included YYY (again, the name has been removed by me) in that group. Your words had a ring of genuineness. How a person at the top treats people under him, tells us a lot about the leadership qualities of that person. This event was the catalyst that made me write the mail you are reading."

I have always believed that communication must be honest, straight, brief, timely and straight from the heart.  What has worked best for me has been when communication is from the heart...because it is genuine and is seen and heard as genuine.  The mail above and the spring in the feet that I had seen earlier re-inforce this to me.

Communication is like a weapon and needs to be used appropriately.  The general trend is to ignore it.  Somehow, I feel otherwise.  As leaders, we need to reach out to the teams that we lead.  And when we reach out, we need to be and be seen as genuine and honest.  If we show that we are genuine, our teams will reach out to us. And trust builds only when communication becomes a two way street.

The best of leaders start faltering when there are blocks or degradation in the channels of communication. That is the reason why I pay lot of attention to communication and being able to reach out in many possible ways.  While communication is very important, following through with action is equally important.  Your teams should see that whatever you have communicated is always followed through with appropriate action. That shows that you hold yourself accountable and the teams start recognizing that what you say will definitely mean something.

One of the biggest impediments to communication is the fact that what is communicated is dependant on the person receiving it.  So, the same communication can mean different things to different people. That is why leaders are very careful when they communicate. They measure their words and tend not to give away too much.  This means most of what they say is well thought through...tends to be more from the head than from the heart.

If we understand that it would be best to judge something that has been said by trying to find out the intent rather than the content, leaders will find it easier to talk impromptu and be more natural.  This will bring out what is in their hearts...and when it comes from the heart, it will definitely touch people.