3 Ways to Uplevel Your Communications with Intentionality

This weekend I took my family away for a little adventure in a Semaphore Tower. This 19th century beauty is the last of its kind -- it is the only remaining tower representing what was once a cutting-edge communications network.

Commissioned after the Battle of Waterloo, the network of semaphore towers could carry a message from London to the docks of Portsmouth in a matter of minutes well before the electric telegraph was invented. Now it’s a lovely getaway in the middle of ancient heathland where I frequently wander with my dog.

While mass communications now happen in a split second, the quality of our communications require improvement. Social networks, with their promise of building community, serve too often to tear apart relationships and wound individuals. It’s time to get more intentional about communications.

Here are three suggestions to help uplevel your communications skills:

1. Listen Actively

Active listening is an intentional practice of listening without judgement, with a clear mind, and with the goal of holding space for the person with whom you are communicating. With this kind of listening, you practice a sharp focus on the other person and maintain an awareness of their motivations and circumstances.

Active listening enables us to better understand the context of our communications, creating the opportunity for greater clarity and richer conversation. Want to learn more? Read my blog post: Making Authentic Connections.

2. Leverage Your Leadership Principles

Leadership principles are an individualized set of aspirational, guiding precepts designed to enable you to lead with conviction, make strategic decisions driven by values, communicate your unique brand, and play a leadership role in your own life. I lean heavily on my own, and find them especially useful when I need to communicate difficult decisions and help those around me understand how I’ve deliberated amongst conflicting priorities.

Taking the time to develop and communicate our own leadership principles is an important step in our ability to uplevel our communication skills. I am offering a three-part course in May 2022 for women who are seeking a guidance and structured supports to do just that. You can learn more about it on our website here.

3. Build Community with Intention

For many of us, what has disappeared from our work lives are the seemingly inconsequential but nevertheless critical community-building conversations we have when we happen to run into a colleague in the elevator, debate menu choices for lunch, and spontaneously grab drinks after work. Developing new, meaningful relationships is challenging to begin with, but with narrowing social opportunities it’s now harder than ever to meet new people and maintain existing relationships.

That’s why I built Tide Risers five years ago, and our mission to build a deliberate community for women leaders has never been so important.

We’ve just launched a newly redesigned membership program, and I welcome you to join us in this important community-building effort. Learn more about becoming a member of Tide Risers here.