Effective Communication

Brad was an electrician working for a national mining company when one day, his boss Jane surprised him with a promotion to team leader. Brad was nervous about taking on this leadership role as he had never led anything in his life and was quite introverted and shy. Brad was naturally very good as an electrician and knew the technical side of the role very well, however, the leadership aspect made him nervous. Eventually, after plenty of coaxing from Jane and with the knowledge of the increased pay packet every month, Brad agreed to take it on. One of the guarantees that Jane gave Brad was that she would assist him in building up the necessary communication skills that he required.

After completing the deBa online training course, Brad met with Jane to discuss a plan to move forwards. As he learnt during the training, becoming comfortable with communicating with people is just like learning any other new skill, it requires deliberate practice and focus. Therefore, Jane set a goal for Brad to talk to each of his team members at least once every two days for the first fortnight. Jane re-iterated the requirement for the conversations to be open-ended and she shared some of her tips for how she approaches her communications.

As the first week progressed, Jane was able to see that Brad was doing a great job in communicating with most of his team members except for one person in his team. This knowledge allowed Jane to have a targeted conversation with Brad about this which led to a realisation that there was a perceived issue with the team member and Brad. Jane shared some of her best practice tips on how Brad could resolve this issue, which he took on board with success.

After approximately 3 months, Brad was a seasoned communicator and realised that he really enjoyed leadership. Within 12 months Brad was promoted again and found himself well on the way to a future career as a business leader.