By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, FAAN, NEA-BC
Have you ever sent a text or email message that was completely misunderstood by the recipient? Most leaders have had this experience. Our digital communication style and the signals we send through it have become a key part of leadership communication skills. Leaders are searching for ways to reduce the confusion and frustration that can easily happen across digital mediums. It is a challenging problem to project that you are concerned about staff and inclusive in your leadership. There is evidence to suggest that some of the loss of empathy in society is due to digital communication where it is so easy to judge intentions quickly, speak our feelings more freely, argue more and walk away from conversations faster. Digital body language thus becomes very powerful.
Digital body language includes the cues and signals we send in digital conversations that add to text of our message. Your digital body language communicates feelings, motivations and stress points but in a very different way than face to face nonverbal communication. Some examples of digital body language include how we order email recipients, who we cc on messages, how we use punctuation and capital letters, our response time to messages, our signature block on messages, our choice of medium (texts, instant messaging or emails), word choices and our use of emojis or pictures.
Erica Dhawan works globally with leaders to improve their digital body language and increase team productivity. She has five key principles that she urges leaders to employ:
- Brevity can create confusion – many email messages are so brief that the intent is not clear. Dhawan urges us to provide enough information so there is clarity. Brevity can often lead to people filling in the gaps (incorrectly) of your message. Don’t assume that others understand your cues and shorthand. Spend the time to communicate with the intention of being ultra-clear, no matter the medium.
- Communicate your mindset – email messages are often not clear as to what the recipient is expected to do with the information. What is the ask in the message? Is it a priority? What your thoughts about the discussion? Are you just thinking out loud?
- Hold your horses – emails are often followed by emails and texts minutes later asking for follow-up without consideration of another’s schedule. Hold back before you send that second email and don’t immediately follow up on a task by email, text, and phone? Abusing those access points can be a form of digital dominance.
- Assume the best intent – before you assume the worst about a digital message, assume positive intent and confirm your interpretation. So many emails are misunderstood and the recipient has an emotional reaction when that was not the intent.
- Find your voice – Dhawan urges leaders to work diligently on finding their digital communication voice. This includes intentionality about how you structure messages, your own response time, the visual structure of your communications to promote inclusion and a wise choice of medium for the right circumstances. She also urges a team discussion around digital communication norms. Many teams create email acronyms like Four Hour Response (4HR) and No Need to Respond (NNTR) that bring predictability and certainty to virtual conversation.
Just as face to face body language can be a career derailer for leaders so too can digital body language. Dhawan points out that as innovative disruption persists, we will continue to experience new forms of misunderstanding. The solution is not in new technologies. Instead, the solution is in understanding the new rules of engagement; in building a communication skill set that reflects the demands of our digital workplace.
Read Rose Sherman’s new book available now – The Nurse Leader Coach: Become the Boss No One Wants to Leave
© emergingrnleader.com 2019
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