Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to provide an outline of the communication skills required by team leaders and supervisors. Excellent communication skills are at the heart of teamworking and they involve people in thinking about the person to whom they are communicating, what they want to communicate, and the most effective means of getting their message across. This chapter considers the following topics: communications in organizations, communicating with the team, e.g. briefing teams and individuals, leading meetings, listening and presentation skills and using virtual communication tools.

Communications in organizations

It is traditional to classify the communications processes in organizations into formal and informal systems.

Formal communications

Formal communication systems are those set up by the organization to ensure that the organization and its staff work towards their goals in an efficient and effective manner. Formal communication processes include:

Large organizations often have a department, frequently the marketing or communications department, that is concerned with internal as well as external communications. Individual managers and team leaders may be provided with guidance about the communication standards within their organization and department. However, the communications processes within a department or team are the responsibility of the managers, team leaders or supervisors. In small organizations individual managers will take much greater responsibility for all communication processes including external communications relevant to their department.

Informal communications

Informal communications include written communications such as notes, birthday cards and e-mails, and a whole range of activities such as gossip, discussions over lunch or in the pub and informal meetings over a photocopier. An important difference between formal and informal communications is that while the management of an organization has some control over the formal communication processes they have little control over the informal ones.