The Importance of Proper Communication

 Our words carry more weight and hold more power than we realize. How you communicate can be the difference between adversity and prosperity. As leaders, our words matter more than we think. Every word is either building trust or tearing it down.  I’ve learned this the hard way.  A careless comment can undo hours of good work. A well timed word can reset a team’s confidence in an instant. The difference isn’t about being polished, It’s about being intentional.  Here’s how I approach communication as a leader.  Connect before You correct.  Players don’t respond to correction until they feel connection. If I jump straight to pointing out mistakes, it lands like criticism.  However, if I’ve already built trust, and proved I believe in them….. Then correction feels like coaching.  Without connection, correction shuts people down. With connection, it lifts them up.  Clarity beats clever, your team doesn’t need clever words they need clear words.  I don’t try to impress with what I say. I try to make sure nobody has to guess what I mean. If they walk away confused, that’s on me. Simple and consistent always beats long and fancy.  Consistency Builds Credibility.  The most damaging communication mistake a leader can make is inconsistency.  What you allow, you condone. If I ignore poor effort on Monday and rip into the same effort on Tuesday, my words lose power.  My team stops listening to what I’m saying, they start guessing which version of me they’re getting today.  Consistency is what makes communication believable. Without it, even the right words won’t matter.  Every time we speak, these 3 things should be the focal point.  Honesty, say the truth, even if it’s hard.  Humility, listen first, own your mistakes.  Hope, point people toward what’s possible, not just what went wrong. That combination builds trust.  Leaders don’t just hand out instructions. We set the tone, We create meaning.  Our words fuel culture, confidence, and resilience.  So speak with purpose, clarity, and consistency.  There’s a difference between calling someone out, and calling them up.  They don’t compete for you, they compete with you.  As leaders if we treat players as if their value only comes from what they can do for you …. How do you think they are going to treat the other people in their lives.  What we say will shape the lives of others, hurt people… hurt people.  I try to use  “THINK” before I speak. What that means is I aim to only say something, if it’s Truthful, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, and Kind.  Honesty, means everything you say is true, but doesn’t mean you need to say everything that is true.  When you’re talking to someone else, are you thinking about what they need to hear, or are you thinking about what you need to say? Anger is a dangerous emotion, it can blind us from the truth.  In crucial conversations we need to remember this.   We often judge ourselves by our intentions, yet we judge others by their actions.  If we judged ourselves by our actions without considering our intentions we probably wouldn’t like ourselves very much either. So the next time you’re furious with someone for something they did, take the time to consider their intentions.  Don’t just make up their intentions in your mind, that’s still going to be fueled by anger. Talk to them calmly with emotion aside, and try to truly understand them.  As a coach poor actions with good intentions still need to be addressed, but it’s not as serious as poor actions caused from poor intentions.  When I need to correct a players behavior I try to separate what they did from who they are.  I’m not angry with them, I’m angry with what they did. So I try to say something like “ listen I know you did this and that’s not ok, but I also know that’s not who you are.  Let’s move on and never do that again, next time you’re in that situation I want you to try and focus on what you should do, not what you want to do.”  That last part is something I continuously work on with myself. Sometimes we get caught up in the moment, we lose track of our purpose, and say things we later regret.  It’s not just the things we say that carry weight. Even the words not spoken carry weight.  Growing up I never had to question whether or not I was loved.  Later in life I realized that’s not something everyone can say. I’ve gone through life trying to make sure my love is easy to see, because that’s what was modeled for me. As a coach I’ll often tell a player I love them, based off their response I can tell that some of them haven’t heard that very much in their life.  Some of the most meaningful things in life, never needed to be said.  I have voicemails on my phone from my dad dating all the way back to when I was in High School. Most of them I couldn't even tell you why he called.  The reason I’ve kept them is because every single one showed me how much I meant to him. He would sound so genuinely happy to have heard my voice on the answering machine.  He would almost always say he loved me before hanging up the phone, even if he hadn’t there was no way I could hear his voicemail and not know.  Too often we take for granted that people know what we mean and how we feel. Without proper communication both verbal and non verbal, how could they know.  Proper communication isn’t about what you’re saying. It’s about what the other person is seeing and hearing. Communication isn’t about you.  So stop thinking about what you need to say, and start thinking about what they need to hear. Ultimately it all comes back to one of my favorite quotes, “nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”.  So show them you care. It’s a lot easier to accept correction when you know the other person wants what’s best for you.  Make your love easy to see, speak authentically with intentionality, and trust the process.