I have been fortunate enough to lead teams through multiple deployments with the Army, and in my experience, most f-ups come from one source, poor communication. Communication involves much more than talking or sharing information. If it’s not understood, it’s not effectively creating a better work environment (through building trust) for employees, managers, or customers. How can you improve your communication past the passive stage?
To improve your communication beyond passive listening for managers and employees, practice active listening and provide feedback during in-person meetings instead of email. Making direct requests and speaking up when something isn’t right can also move you beyond passive communication.
If you want to improve communication in your organization, stick around. This article will identify what passive communication looks like and how to improve it.
Passive Communication Doesn’t Make a Good Workspace
Simply put, when someone uses passive communication, they go around the block about what they want rather than getting directly to the point. An example might be, “I wish someone here would clean the litter box so the cats have a nice place to go.”
Active communication makes the request directly. Let’s look at how the above request should be phrased: “Jacob, will you please clean the litter box?”
When someone communicates passively, they look down, slump their shoulders, and speak softly. They don’t look the other person in the eye and act like what they say doesn’t matter to the team or the organization.
When managing your employees, do you find that you’re using passive communication, as referenced above?
Many managers think that if they put up a list of things that need to be done or complain about things not being done, their employees will do them. Or they seem to think that if they just mention things in passing, their communication is received.
But that’s not the case. When managers lead like this, employees are confused about what they’re supposed to do, and less gets done. Managers, however, aren’t the only problem in a workplace with passive communication.
Employees tend to communicate passively with each other and their managers.
This doesn’t make a good workplace because it doesn’t address the problems or make the employees feel valued and appreciated. It also creates hard feelings, arguments, and a lack of trust and productivity.
Another reason this doesn’t make a good workplace is that your employees are less likely to properly care for your customers.
Let’s say that a customer calls, asking about the specifications of a certain product. If your employee doesn’t bother asking the customer certain questions about what they’re looking for, your employee could give the wrong answer.
If the customer feels slighted by this, they could go to your competitor, and you would lose their business and future business from word of mouth.
Leading your employees this way is usually not a great plan, as it could result in disaster if you don’t get control of it.
Why Do Employees Engage in Passive Communication?
Employees might engage in passive communication because they fear retribution from their managers or supervisors. If they spoke out about some of the problems they saw on the job, their supervisor might punish or fire them.
With this leadership style, employees will eventually put their heads down, do the minimum in their job, and bide their time until they go elsewhere.
They also withhold active communication because they might think it’s not worth their time or effort, especially if their supervisors don’t listen or make the suggested changes. Acknowledging your employees’ ideas or complaints can encourage them to speak up in the future regarding complaints or ideas.
Many Leaders Don’t Encourage Employees To Speak Up
Managing a small team requires active communication, but many leaders don’t encourage their employees to speak up when something goes wrong or when they’re upset about something within the organization.
This gives employees the idea that their ideas aren’t worth listening to, so they don’t speak up. Most of the time, managers who lead with the idea that their employees are wrong won’t look for opportunities to encourage them to speak up.
So instead of directly asking employees to do a certain task, they will post lists of things to do. And if managers expect employees to do their work without making suggestions to improve the workplace, employees won’t speak up.
The same can be said for employees who expect their supervisors to know what they need.
Improve Communication With Active Listening and Face-to-Face Feedback Meetings
So how can you improve communication within your organization? Active listening and giving feedback in face-to-face meetings can go a long way toward achieving this goal. But this sounds like a lot of abstract words and concepts.
What does this mean for managers and employees?
Active communication includes speaking up and listening, showing the other person you’re interested in what they need to say. In the workplace, it’s critical that managers and employees practice active communication, or the organization will fail.
Why Face-to-Face Feedback Meetings Can Improve Your Communication
Communication can also be improved with face-to-face feedback meetings. Instead of guessing what the other person thinks or feels through an email, especially if it’s critical, “need to know” information, it’s best to call that person into your office and have a personal conversation.
This also allows your employees to have a chance to give feedback to you as well.
In a way, emails are a passive form of communication, as it doesn’t require you to participate in an active conversation or monitor how your message is being received. It also allows you to stay uninvolved with your employees, which you don’t want.
When meeting with your employees face to face, you get a better understanding and idea of your organization’s morale, and you can take steps to correct any problems as they arise.
Why Active Listening Creates Better Results
Have you ever been conversing with someone who was only passively listening to you? You know that type of conversation where the other person does the following:
- Doesn’t make eye contact.
- Playing on their phone.
- Nods and says, “Uh-huh.”
- Talks over you or says something irrelevant to the conversation.
They may or may not be listening at this point, and you wonder if they even received your communication. And you might have felt frustrated and unheard.
Do you do this with your employees or supervisors? If so, your organization probably doesn’t get much work done, or the morale is likely low.
Actively listening and communicating with your employees or managers looks more like this:
- Keeping direct eye contact with the speaker.
- Asking relevant questions to understand.
- Gives undivided attention to the speaker.
- Doesn’t just wait for their turn to speak but actively listens and then thinks about a relevant response.
When managers and employees actively listen to each other, they retain more and can positively impact the organization. More gets done, and your company experiences more success.
How Active Communication Benefits the Workplace
Even though passive communication isn’t always bad, active communication benefits the workplace by allowing employees to speak up about their problems and responsibly air their grievances while listening to their manager’s issues and vice versa.
Imagine two scenarios.
In the first scenario, Tom manages a small business providing computer and technical support to medical offices. His team consists of five employees, all of whom have different communication styles. However, he never learned how to communicate beyond the passive stage when communicating.
He either sends his employees emails of projects without directions, or he assumes that no one will do the work and decides to do it himself. His team has no idea what they’re doing half the time, and their customers are often in the dark about when to expect things to get done.
None of his employees know how to work together well because he doesn’t know how to lead them with active communication.
The business is about to fail, and the owners are contemplating bankruptcy.
In the second scenario, Alan manages an accounting business’s team of around 20 employees. While everyone has a preferred communication style, they all communicate well and finish projects on time without much drama. The company is thriving because customers know what to expect and when.
What’s the difference between Alan’s team and Tom’s team?
Tom’s team is very disorganized and doesn’t have a clear direction. When they try to get clear answers, he says, “Do what you want, as what I say doesn’t matter anyway.”
Alan’s team, however, knows what’s expected of them, can get clear feedback, and is comfortable taking their concerns and questions to their manager. Alan leads with an active communication style.
These two scenarios are purely fictional, and no particular team operates in this “black and white” format. However, it demonstrates how passive vs active communication can affect a workplace.
When managers and employees learn to communicate directly and effectively, a failing business can succeed, but it will take work.
How To Implement Active Communication
Until now, we’ve discussed why active communication is better than passive for your workplace, but it’s all been words. Putting this into practice might be easier said than done, but it can be done if you’re willing to put in the work.
Here’s how you, as a manager, can implement active communication within your workplace:
- Create an open door policy, within reason.
- Give your employees your full attention when they bring a complaint or other feedback to your attention.
- Make direct requests of your employees and other managers within your organization.
- Be clear in your communication, and if anyone seems confused, ask if they have any questions.
Beyond the things you can actively do, certain nonverbal behaviors can indicate whether you’re using passive or active communication. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Am I making direct eye contact?
- Are your shoulders slumped, or are they straight up?
- Do you have a habit of crossing your arms and legs when communicating with someone?
- Does your voice tend to get quieter when making requests?
- Do you tend to multi-task when someone is talking to you?
Aside from the nonverbal behaviors, there are other things you can do to ensure you’re using active and direct communication:
- Have one-on-one interactions with passive communicators in your team.
- Be direct yet warm with your requests and/or statements.
- As a manager, you’ll want to ask questions your employees can answer directly. It’s better to ask when something will be done versus if they think it will be done soon.
- Ensure you understand what the other person said by rephrasing what you thought you heard, allowing you to be very clear with their communication.
The Difference Between Passive and Passive-Aggressive Communication
While we’ve been talking about passive communication and how to get beyond it, you might have someone on your team who is rather passive-aggressive (or passive-assertive) with their communication. On the outside, they might seem passive, but they also have passive-aggressive tendencies.
Passive communicators act like this:
- They speak softly and without confidence.
- They avoid conflicts.
- They don’t make direct requests.
- They would rather do something independently and overwork themselves rather than ask for help.
Meanwhile, passive-aggressive communicators do all of the above plus the following actions:
- They make sarcastic comments behind someone’s back or even to their face.
- They take revenge for some slight offense instead of directly confronting the person who made the offense.
- They do something intentionally wrong when asked to do what they don’t want to do.
- They create drama over something trivial.
- They subtly sabotage the team’s morale and progress.
A passive-aggressive person within your team can erode any hope you have of active and assertive communication, so you’ll need to use the strategies in this article as well as do the following strategies:
- Let the person know they can responsibly express their feelings about something.
- Ensure they are truly okay with a project before continuing.
- Give everyone a chance to speak up so they don’t feel singled out.
Conclusion
While passive communication has some surprising benefits, it’s often better to speak up when you have something important to say or if you have a legitimate complaint. Managers who allow their employees to speak up often succeed better than those who don’t. Likewise, managers who speak up when needed can steer the projects and other issues to a better place.
Here is a great resource for you when you want to improve your communication but don't have someone to practice with.
