Funny Leadership Story - Clear Communication Matters



Business communication styles can come in several harmful flavors. I love the following story that illustrates how your style of communication could lead to big problems in business and personally if you aren’t careful. What’s your leadership communication style?

One night an angry man and wife were preparing for bed. Neither of them had spoken to each other most of the day.
It was normal for the couple to boil in a war of silence for several days. However, this time the man was concerned because he needed to be woken up at 5:00 AM the next morning so that he could catch an important flight. He was a heavy sleeper and relied on his wife to wake him up, otherwise there was a good chance he would sleep right through the alarm!
Letting his pride get the best of him he cleverly decided he would write her a note while she was in the bathroom instead of asking her verbally. He wrote on the piece of paper: “Please wake me up at 5:00 AM, I have a critical flight to catch.” He put the note on his wife’s pillow believing she would for sure see it there. He then tucked himself in and went to bed.
The next morning when he woke up he looked at the clock and it was 7:00 AM! He was enraged that he had missed his flight and was preparing to go up the stairs and give his errant wife a scolding when he noticed a handwritten note on his nightstand.
The note said: “It’s 5:00 AM – get up.”
So again, what’s your communication style? You get what you give. If you aren’t clear, what you get most likely won’t be what you intended. And obviously, some business communication styles are more preferred than others.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Are you Leading?

Dr. Deepak A. Patil

CEO, Lead ThySelf



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