Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
„Multinational companies nowadays work at such a fast pace that their leaders act like action men or action women“, says Gia Helena Guitérrez Wallentinsson, an industrial psychologist and international management coach. As a consequence, these super heroes often show limiting communication behaviors that damage their reputation.
We have interviewed the expert concerning these damaging communication behaviors.
Which communication behaviors damage a leaders’s reputation?
In the following, Gia Helena Guitérrez Wallentinsson summarizes the 
most limiting ones she has observed.
- When leaders have to act at such a fast rate, they do not have time to really communicate things. They tend to assume things and act without planning.
- There is a big tendency of putting negative images into a person’s head when saying things in a negative way, e.g. „Don’t take this as a criticism“. As a result, the person concerned immediately believes that he or she will be criticised. Putting a whole negative atmosphere right from the beginning of a conversation is a time bomb. Thus leaders should say the thigs they really want – and not what they don’t want.
- The line between being assertive and being aggressive is very thin. Leaders might think that they are assertive, but in fact they come across as being aggressive.
- Being overly agreeable to avoid confrontations is another limiting behavior. One solution could be „we agree to disagree“, which is not a win-win, but it is not a lose-lose either.
- Especially unexperienced leaders tend to ask questions they don’t want the answers to. When they want the audience to reflect into a topic, they have to be prepare themselves and organize their internal dialogue first.
- Leaders very often feel uncomfortable with silences. A good leader knows how to use a silence in his favour for e.g. getting information, expecting an answer, making the question reflect, etc.
- Communicating in the sense of Pawlow’s dogs: some leaders believe that in the beginning of a conversation you can only focus on negative things. So they sort of condition the people they work with that every time they call them in it is just to criticise them. So the people are conditioned and expect criticism even if the leader wants to praise them.
- The main pitfall for communication is that leaders do not prepare and organize their meetings or conversations. Then it is just a waste of time because it is so easy to lose the thread of the message.
- When it comes to skillful criticism, new leaders often fail to criticise the behavior or the things a person did. Instead, they criticise the person. When giving feedback, no matter whether it is positive or constructive criticism, leaders should always stick to the things one can see, explain the consequences, state how they feel about it and then make their request.
A new scope in the communication concept
According to Gia Helena Guitérrez Wallentinsson, many people connect communication trainings with the old-fashioned sender-reciever-thing. But when it comes to leadership and dealing with complicated people or people one cannot stand, there is a totally new scope in the communication concept.
Most of the participants of her trainings have not been aware that they would damage their reputation so badly when communicating in the above stated ways. Moreover, they agreed that changing their communication behavior had been one of the most difficult things – but the most rewarding.
„Communication is the leader’s currency. The more he or she spends on communication, the more efficient he or she becomes at the end of the day“, explains the industrial psychologist.
Profile:
Gia Helena Guitérrez Wallentinsson is an industrial psychologist and international management coach with a focus on communication and leadership development. She has considerable experience working with multinational companies in Latin America and Europe. Furthermore, she is a Certified Master in Systemic Therapy.
Our next trainings:
Laterale Führung – Führen ohne Vorgesetztenfunktion
07.11. – 08.11.2013
Link zu Infos auf HP
Führung für Nachwuchsführungskräfte
25.11. – 26.11.2013
Link zu Infos auf HP
Have a nice week!
Best Regards,
Your MDI team