What you say or do, or don’t say or do is noticed. You are ‘on show’ all the time. This is particularly true if you are a manager.

People notice what you say or do, and then make sense of it. They extract meaning from what they observe.

They then talk with colleagues and swap their ideas of what your activities mean, what they imply about your values, your ethics, your motivation, your intentions and what they imply about you.

These conversations are where the ‘meaning’ of any message coalesces and forms, and then affects their behaviour. Think about how you talk with your peers about any message you get from your boss.

What if the ‘meaning’ your team extracts from your behaviour and messages is not what you hope it is? What if they have misunderstood the message, or you as a person?

To find out, you need to engage with them in conversations that bring out what they think the messages are so you can understand how your communication, either by word or deed, intentional or unintentional, landed.

Here are some other things around communication you should be doing as a manager.

My best wishes, Paul
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