Mark Wager will be in Fiji between the 11th to 15th September. Mark has limited availability but if you want to meet him or invite him to deliver training at your business contact him at Mark@Leadership.com.fj

In Fiji employees were asked what was the biggest area that they wanted their Manager or Supervisor to improve and the number one answer was the leader’s communication skills.

Research done by the Australasian Leadership Institute shows that 31% of all Leaders were considered to have poor communication skills which lead to misunderstandings, loss of motivation and poor performance.

In order to become an excellent leader you need to understand how to adapt your communication style to suit your audience.

People have different communication styles and have preferences to how they want to be communicated with.

If you talk to a group of people, within that same group you will have a multitude of different interpretations of what was said and while some people are very clear about what they need to do next, others may end up doing something quite different.

In business misunderstandings create unnecessary risk which takes time to resolve, time which can be more effectively spent on other issues.

To be successful you need to understand how people communicate differently and in order to do that you need to know the 4Q Communication Model.

Using the research of the famous Swiss psychologist Carl Jung as a foundation, the 4Q Communication Model illustrates how the mind functions.

During communication, the mind uses a combination of methods to process and communicate information.

These methods fall into of four different quadrants. Every mind utilises these four quadrants but everyone does so to a different degree. Some use one Quadrant much more than the others but still use all four.

This is why communication is so difficult but the 4Q Communication Model simplifies complex psychological theory and makes it assessable so that every leader can make improvements.

The Four quadrants of the mind can be best described as the following archetypes, the Inventor, the Engineer, the Warrior and the Carer. Let me explain each archetype in more detail.

The Inventor

This is the Quadrant where creativity lives. If your personal communication style is high in this area then you are more likely to be focussed on the future rather than the past.

You will naturally think about possibilities and when you hear about an idea, you commonly consider yourself to be a big picture thinker and strategist.

You tend to come up with creative answers to problems and when in a leadership role you can be described as a visionary yet if you as the leader is too high in this area, which is common particularly with leaders in CEO positions, then you can be seen by others as not being practical, realistic in your thinking and losing touch with the frontline service of the business.

It doesn’t mean this is true but this kind of perception can easily establish itself if you are not careful.

The Warrior

This is the Quadrant where pure logic exists. Everyone visits this Quadrant but if you are particularly high in this area then you are known for being results focussed and you believe that fairness can’t exist in business without policies and structures to enforce them.

You believe that good performance should be the normal expectation rather than be an exception so you view a lack of feedback as a sign that you are doing well which can lead to Warrior leaders being perceived as not giving enough feedback to others.

When leaders are too high in the Warrior Quadrant then common criticisms are that the leader comes across as uncaring, blunt and direct in their communication style and more focussed on the business rather than on the people.

Again it doesn’t mean these criticisms are true but an unbalanced communication style easily gives this impression.

The Engineer

This is the Quadrant which focuses more on the detail.

If your communication style is heavy in this area then you typically spend more time in the past and present rather than the future and are considered to be very practical and realistic in your approach.

When communicating you are more likely to focus on the details and rely on previous experience when making decisions.

You don’t quite believe something until you see it for yourself and you believe actually doing a task is the best way to learn the task.

Yet like the other quadrants there are drawbacks and if you are too heavy in this area then you are likely to be criticised as being too focussed on the detail and ignoring the bigger vision and as a result may be perceived as being negative to change because you don’t see the wider strategy or you do but it doesn’t make sense without the detail that you prefer.

The Carer

The last Quadrant is where emotions exist. If you are high in this Quadrant then you tend to focus more on the impact on people rather than policies or procedures and you believe that unless you truly understand what people are going through, you will never be in a position to help them.

For you a caring leader is an effective leader yet it doesn’t mean you are soft but it’s easy for others to come to that false conclusion.

Everyone has an element of the carer Quadrant within them yet if you are low in this Quadrant it doesn’t mean you don’t care or are incapable of caring instead it means that it doesn’t come across so much when you communicate.

When people communicate, their mind visits all four quadrants, the inventor, the warrior, the engineer and the career.

This journey is different for everyone because each of us spends different lengths of time in each Quadrant and this journey defines how we communicate.

The biggest mistake we make is that we assume others communicate the same way that we do, so when we hear a message we assume the intent behind that message is what it would be if we had said the message but we couldn’t be more wrong.

Never forget that people communicate in different ways and often what is said is not the same as what is being heard.

Feedback:  selita.bolanavanua@fijisun.com.fj