The Goal of Communication: 2 Tips to Achieve Transformative Speaking & Listening

This video is from the "Core Qualities of Christian Leaders" playlist, a series for middle & high school students who are actively preparing to fulfill God's mission in their lives by developing their character.

Even though you may not know exactly what God plans to do with your skills, your gifts, your talents, and your strengths, you want to be prepared to execute His plans faithfully and successfully. HIGH TEN!

We're working our way through the book,The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, by John Maxwell, and we're on Chapter 4, which is about the critical leadership skill of Communication. In the video, I share two tips for you to improve in your speaking skills and your listening skills so that they actually change you.

Now it's important to acknowledge right off the bat, what might be obvious, and that is that there are many, many forms of communication, both verbal and non-verbal. We think of books, lectures, sermons, music, Broadway shows, screenplays, movies. We think of art, painting, sculpture, sign language, Braille.

The kind of communication for the purpose of this video is verbal communication.

Effective Communication

How do you know when communication is successful? What is effective communication? What is the goal of communication?

Think about your experience with effective communication. It might be a sermon that really hit you hard, a concert that you attended that moved you powerfully, a movie that you can remember vividly because of how it made you feel, or a conversation that you had with an important person who led you to make some changes in your life. In all of these examples, communication was more than just the exchange of information. There was a transformation, a change that resulted in you or in the other party or in both of you. And that is the goal and the mark of successful communication: transformation.

Communication for Transformation

The first tip for transformational communication is in your speaking: Speak to connect. Speak to connect with the other person or with a group of people. By connection, I mean on the heart level, like an emotional connection that leaves you feeling emotionally closer to the person after the conversation or the sermon or the concert or the performance. This is a change in your emotions and your feelings towards the person because you have been moved, affected, impacted, and transformed by the communication that just happened between the two of you.

Why is connection so important? Because Teddy Roosevelt said it best: "People don't care how much you know or what you know until they know how much you care." Write that one down.

Types of Communication

Communication experts have come up with four general types of communication that help us to understand which type to use when speaking. Those four types are: passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, and assertive.

I am going to walk us through each one of those very briefly and zero in on assertive communication as being the healthiest and most effective way to achieve transformational communication. Ask yourself, "which type of communication do I most relate to? Which one describes me?"

Passive Communication

Do you use a passive form of communication? Passive communication is defined by being avoidant; they avoid conflict; they avoid confrontation. So, these people tend to be kind of quiet and they tend to just accept the opinions of the more dominant people in the group.

Aggressive Communication

Aggressive communication is the opposite of passive. Aggressive communication comes across as being louder, more dominant, somewhat controlling. These kinds of communicators aren't afraid to use "you statements" (sentences that start with "you"-- "You should..." "You could..." "Why don't you..." "You always..." "You never..."). More on "you statements" later.

Passive-Aggressive Communication

The third type of communication is a blend of passive and aggressive. Passive-aggressive communication tends to be quiet, but unlike a passive communicator, the passive-aggressive person does have an opinion, does have ideas, does have a perspective that wants to be shared, but holds back. So, the passive-aggressive communicator simmers; they communicate through other people, they communicate in strange ways that comes out "sideways." There is something off about passive-aggressive communication because it wants to be direct but chooses to be indirect, and therefore can be confusing because it comes across as mixed messaging.

Assertive Communication: The Healthy Approach

The last form of communication, which is the healthiest and most effective way to achieve transformational communication between people, is called assertive communication. Assertive communication avoids the two extremes of passivity and aggression. Assertive communication is direct, emotionally-controlled, respectful, and knows how to use "I" statements instead of "you" statements.

"You" vs "I" Statements

So, what is a "you" statement and an "I" statement? Leaders, if you can learn this one trick for how to turn a "you" statement into an "I" statement, this is going to help you in so many conversations. It's going to save you from so much misunderstanding, miscommunication, and pain.

So here's how you can turn a "you statement" into an "I statement":

• A "you" statement sounds like, "You never listen to me." An "I" statement sounds like, "I feel unheard; can we talk?"
• A "you" statement would say, "You never make time for me." An "I" statement would say instead, "I miss hanging out with you."
• A "you" statement says, "You don't understand me." An "I" statement says instead, "I want you to know me."

Are you getting it? Here's another example:

• A "you" statement says, "You need to try harder." An "I" statement would say instead, "I want you to succeed."

Do you see the difference?

"You" statements are less effective for connecting with the person you are trying to communicate with because they come across as accusatory, judgmental, and critical. They generalize and assume too much about the other person. "I" statements are more effective for communication because they speak only for the person speaking. They are vulnerable, but they promote an open-hearted and open-minded posture in a person.

To summarize so far, we've established that the goal of communication is transformation. To achieve transformation in speaking, speak in a way that will connect with a person, and that way is by using assertive communication.

Engaging in Active Listening

Now, how about listening? How do you listen in a way that will connect with a person, so that one or both parties are transformed by the communication? When listening, the goal is to listen to understand--not to reply. This requires active listening.

Here are four easy ways to become an active listener.

Use Non-Verbal Cues

Use non-verbal cues to invite connection. Non-verbal cues are eye contact, facial expressions, body language. To make eye contact, put away your devices, shut the computer down, put your phone in the pocket, turn your body toward the person to invite a conversation, and show the other person that there's nothing more important right now than to hear (and understand) what you have to say.

Use Verbal Cues and Ask Follow-up Questions

Second, use verbal cues to strengthen the connection and continue the conversation. That means use utterances as the other person is talking to you, such as "um," "oh yeah," "wow." Those are cues that let the other person know that you're following along, you're listening, you're interested, and you're trying to understand what they're saying.

Also, ask questions. Ask follow-up questions that are directly related to what the other person just shared  that will invite them to keep talking, keep thinking out loud, keep elaborating, and keep processing their thoughts with you. You can also reflect back, or "mirror," what the other person has just said to you to establish that you do understand what they are talking about. You could say something as simple as "So, are you saying that you feel confused about what to do?" or "So, it seems like you feel nervous about having to make this decision." These kinds of words invite conversation, invite dialogue, invite continuing connection with the person.

Don't Stay Quiet

The third way that you can invite connection while listening is pretty obvious: Don't stay quiet. Don't go stone-faced on them while they are sharing with you. That closes the communication lines because it expresses disinterest and a lack of emotional involvement or engagement when the other person is trying to communicate with you.

Keep the Focus on Them

The last, easy way that you can connect with a person while listening actively is by letting the person talk about himself or herself. Keep the focus on them. Let them finish talking about their life before you change the subject to talk about you. Once they are done, you will have your chance to share your perspective in response to what they have just shared.

God as the Great Communicator

I hope this content helps you to become a more transformational communicator in your speaking and in your listening, as you aim to connect on the heart level with the people you are called to lead and to influence.

In closing, let's just remember that God is the Great Communicator. He spoke the world into existence. John 1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

The late evangelist Billy Graham said, "Through the written word, we discover the living Word, Jesus Christ."

God, our heavenly Father, a Spirit who has no body like men, wanted to communicate clearly and directly to us. And He made Himself known in the man Jesus Christ. God wants to be known. He wants to communicate clearly and concretely with us. And that's why He left us the canon of the 66 books of the Bible.

And so let's value communication because communication is how we connect with each other. Communication builds community, and that is God's plan for us as His people.

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If you're enjoying this series, The Core Qualities of Christian Leaders, then please subscribe to this channel. I am uploading videos as I teach these concepts to my Well-Led Life Leadership Mastermind group on Sunday nights.

Forward this series to a friend who is in leadership or wants to be in leadership. But regardless of positions of leadership, all of us are called to lead ourselves first and foremost every day. I pray that this series will help you to do just that.

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