As a manager, one of the most common criticisms received is a lack of clarity during conversations, situations, or tasks. It can be frustrating to feel like you are not being understood or heard, and it can lead to confusion and inefficiencies within a team.

To address this issue, it is crucial to adopt effective communication strategies that prioritize clarity and understanding. This includes asking for feedback from team members, which can help to identify areas for improvement in communication styles. However, it’s important to be persistent and open-minded when receiving feedback, without becoming defensive. Follow-up questions can also be helpful in ensuring that you fully understand the main problem.

Another key strategy is to get to the point and avoid beating around the bush. While it is important to be respectful, being direct and clear is not impolite. Fluffing up messages with unnecessary information can actually be counterproductive and lead to confusion. Instead, being clear and concise can help to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that tasks are completed effectively.

Repeating key information is also an important strategy to ensure that messages are understood and remembered. It’s better to be a bit boring than to be misunderstood, especially when delivering critical messages or tasks. By repeating key information in different ways, team members are more likely to understand and remember what is being communicated.

Taking pauses during conversations or when delivering important information can also be beneficial. It can help managers to articulate their thoughts more clearly and provide team members with the opportunity to digest the information and ask questions if needed.

Finally, it’s important to check for understanding to ensure that everyone is on the same page. This can be done by asking team members to repeat or summarize the message to confirm their understanding. It is not condescending to check for understanding; rather, it demonstrates that you care about their comprehension and are invested in their success.

By adopting these communication strategies, managers can provide clarity and direction for their teams, ultimately contributing to the overall success of the team and organization.

In addition to the aforementioned strategies, you, as manager, have to make sure you made your team feel comfortable asking you questions after a task was assigned or a conversation had ended. This extra time allow your team to process the information and encouraged them to approach you later with any additional queries, which ensured that they comprehended the assigned task completely and could execute it to the best of their abilities.