Leadership Skills for Task and Relationship Communication

Leadership Skills often come down to an effective balance of task-oriented communication skills and relationship-oriented communication. Assess your own leadership skills by looking at these examples and a grid of leadership and management effectiveness.
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Task-oriented leadership focuses on communicating goals, priorities, deadlines, and responsibilities clearly and concisely.
Relationship-oriented leadership focuses on positive interactions, listening well, showing consideration, and helping followers feel connected.
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[@alexanderlyon]

How would *_you_* rate your own skills? Free Downloads: www.alexanderlyon.com/free-resources

[@thisfknguy3423]

Somewhere between 6-8 on both. And mike.

[@craigtravasso]

Very well explained, Alex. The importance of task and relationship is so vital in organization communication. Thank you. Well done.

[@alexanderlyon]

Glad it was helpful, Craig. Thank you for the encouragement.

[@agnessampomah]

I will relate with Mike because his style will effectively enable the team to grow and to achieve their goals on time.

[@kadiyamkrishna]

Fortunately, my supervisor is like Mike. Thanks Alex (as always), having said that on your earlier videos too, your videos starts my day. Thank you very much.

[@alexanderlyon]

I’m glad the videos are helpful, Krishna.

[@gloriakummer5357]

9/10 on tasks. 2/10 on relationships. It’s true I do like to work on how to organize task communication. Never thought you could work on relationship. It’s always been a bit of a mystery to me and assume either you had it or not. I want to learn how to work on that as I’m a business owner and want my employees to feel appreciated. I show appreciation in ways people don’t seem to want. It feels like I’m stepping into another planet.

[@alexanderlyon]

Hi, Gloria. I saw this and other comments from you. I'm glad the videos are helpful. You're on the path now!

[@Jane306]

Mike seems like a great manager!!! Wish I have a Mike on my team :') anyway, I really hope you were my professor. I understand more from watching your videos than from my professor's explanations. :')

[@utopiandame]

Good call out on the differences between the leadership skills. I think I'm probabaly a mix of both, with slight orientation towards the task type. I would be more aware at work with this knowledge. It would be useful to see specific examples of how to increase the communication of either type i.e. how can a task based communicator become more relationship oriented. Thank you for the good content.

[@alexanderlyon]

Good point, Shobana. I can see developing a more detailed training on both task and relationship skills. That's a great idea.

[@JoannaGalacticTutor]

Perfect - love these self help videos' - so needed this; will check out your classes, been so busy; would love to take part - thank you

[@alexanderlyon]

Hi, Joanna. I'm glad the videos make a difference.

[@melaniepotestas8969]

Thanks a lot sir. Ok I got it. It's very much helpful for me. God bless u always

[@alexanderlyon]

Always welcome.

[@chasehernandez3710]

thank you so much you are so inspiring

[@alexanderlyon]

Thank you so much for your kind words, Chase.

[@aaronlatif52]

I feel like Im high in both for half the team and medium in task and low in relationship with the other half. Its outdoor seasonal retail work with extremely busy times, long hours, hot temperatures, with mostly college kids back home for the summer. Im 26 and I just completed working with the core crew for 3 seasons this past summer. Im quick to give praise and critique and some people are very appreciative of it but others can make it feel like Im walking on egg shells hence why I perform lower with them. Some people Im able to build confidence and humility if they swing to hard the other direction and it comes so naturally and easy. Watching people get past previous limits is such a joy to witness. The other half is really frustrating because I put in so much more thought and effort for those that I cant perform well with. Like how do you build relationship and understanding with people that don't like your methods when your methods get half the crew performing beyond what they were previous capable of. If I back off Ive been accused of favorites and abandoning them even or give more attention and their mistakes get more attention even when I attempt to point them out very softly and attempt to approach with as much humility as I can on ways they could improve. It just so frustrating. I've attempted being an open book with these types and they take everything as worse as they can. I just dont get it. I dont feel like I made anyone feel small or made myself look better. Talking with others its been theorized that some are jealous or feel underappreciated or feel micromanaged or maybe they cant take critique.

[@alexanderlyon]

Thanks for sharing, arian. Leadership is a struggle and you're quite right that different people require different approaches. There's constant opportunities to learn about ourselves and about others.

[@carolinemwazi5583]

Very useful. Great if you could include a scoring tool for both task and relationship. We can improve both with intentionality.

[@alexanderlyon]

That's not a bad idea, Caroline.

[@ratneshtiwari8353]

Thanks a lot

[@alexanderlyon]

Happy to help!

[@Warrior369.]

Nice

[@nrod7]

Alex, your book for when?

[@alexanderlyon]

You mean, do I have a book out? Yes, it came out a few years ago. It's called *_Case Studies in Courageous Organizational Communication_* . It's on Amazon.

[@thisfknguy3423]

You should check out a couple of NF songs. He is a wordsmith and his lyrics are unbelievably descriptive. I think it would be a neat look into communication on an artistic level.

[@alexanderlyon]

Interesting suggestion. That might be a stretch for this channel but I like you're creativity.

[@thisfknguy3423]

You should at least check out Therapy session and clouds, then figure your best course of action from there.

[@thisfknguy3423]

It’s not your average rapper, by any means.

[@thisfknguy3423]

So, more emphasis on task, and less on relationship communication, right? At least check out therapy session. If that doesn’t convince you, then I’m sorry for your time. But this isn’t some random suggestion, but a deeper look into communication involving difficult subjects. But I digress...

[@ParisianStreets]

Im heather. Need to be more task focused.

[@leadershipisaphilosophy]

Sir, I would like to possibly collaborate with you on this topic, I apologize for using this forum. I searched (in a non stalker way) for email address or some other way to contact you and didn't find one. If you would like to see what I am working on my project is on Leadership is a Philosophy on KZbin.

[@alexanderlyon]

Hi. I'm flattered by your request. But, the truth is, I have only collaborated thus far with fellow professors and KZbin friends I have had for a while. It always just comes up naturally in the course of conversation. I have never done a collaboration by request like this. But, let's stay in touch. I'm Linkedin as well.

[@Captain-Electro]

Probably about half on both 🤔 Not to use a bunch of excuses but I went from working in the field with cussing and yelling to a unionized indoor job. I feel like the workers are more sensitive so I'm guessing they are sensing that from me. I have this thing in my mind "you get paid $20/hr to push buttons" your job isn't bad. On the other hand , I bring some sympathy in the form of hands on learning and I love to teach. Most of my guys don't have mechanical skills so when the machine stops I connect by showing how to fix it and work with them to get it fixed if it is a major issue. Not much explaining is needed because we build the same part every day.

[@alexanderlyon]

Thanks for sharing your examples, Captain Electro. Makes sense.

[@kasienebeker4785]

You need to be careful with the relationship before it break that up

[@angie6043]

how can i send this to my last boss? lol

[@cletechy]

I am like bill but want to be like mike

[@alexanderlyon]

I want to be like Mike too.

[@laurenpetter2421]

I don't appreciate that you are throwing a bit of sexism in your examples.

[@alexanderlyon]

The examples I used are actual people who were my real supervisors. I only changed their names. This is not hypothetical. Feel free to explain why specifically you believe my examples are sexist. I would be interested to hear you spell it out precisely.