In this article
- Leadership soft skills need a concrete practice target
- Practise clarity in briefings
- Practise listening in development conversations
- Practise disagreement without adding contempt
- Practise recognition that helps someone repeat good work
- A hypothetical conversation practice map
- Evaluate the conversation rather than your image
- Make room for different ways of contributing
The Center for Creative Leadership treats these as important human leadership skills. This guide focuses on everyday practice rather than ranking personalities or claiming that one communication style suits every workplace.
Leadership soft skills need a concrete practice target
Choose a recurring conversation where the team loses clarity. A handover, planning meeting, disagreement or development discussion gives you a useful starting point.
“Improve communication” is too broad to practise. “End the briefing with a named owner and an agreed next action” is observable.
Ask colleagues what regularly makes the conversation difficult. You may discover that your presentation is clear but the decision authority is not, or that people have concerns they cannot raise in the time available.
Pick one behaviour for the next two or three relevant occasions. Repetition should help you learn; it should not become a rigid script regardless of context.
Practise clarity in briefings
A briefing should make the required action easier to understand. Start with what is changing or what decision is needed, then provide the context required to act.
A useful order is: purpose, current position, required action, owner and timing. Add uncertainty explicitly rather than burying it in a confident summary.
For example: “The delivery date is not confirmed. The customer team needs a verified update by Thursday. Arun will check the supplier’s commitment today, and I will resolve any exception tomorrow.”
Ask someone to state the next step in their own words. If they cannot, improve the briefing rather than assuming they were not paying attention.
Avoid using extra slides to compensate for an unresolved decision. More information cannot identify an owner that has never been agreed.
Practise listening in development conversations
Listening means testing your understanding before responding. Ask what the colleague is trying to achieve and which part is difficult.
A short reflection can be enough: “You know the analysis, but you are unsure how to challenge the assumption in the meeting. Is that the issue?”
Once the issue is clear, agree whether the person needs coaching, advice, a decision or access to another colleague. Do not force every discussion into the same format.
Keep your own examples brief. A story from your career can help, but it can also move attention away from the employee’s situation.
Practise disagreement without adding contempt
A useful disagreement identifies the proposition being challenged and the evidence or constraint behind the challenge. It does not require labelling the other person as naive or difficult.
Try: “I disagree with using the current estimate because it excludes the revised delivery cost. Can we compare the assumptions?”
Then state what would change your mind. This shows that the discussion concerns a decision, rather than a contest over status.
If you hold more authority, invite a different view before announcing your preference when feasible. Otherwise colleagues may spend the meeting adapting to your answer.
Some decisions still need to be made quickly. Explain the basis, identify remaining uncertainty and say when the decision can be reviewed.
Practise recognition that helps someone repeat good work
Specific recognition identifies an action and why it mattered. “You checked the source dates before sharing the report, which helped us avoid comparing different periods” is more informative than “You are a superstar.”
Ask how the colleague prefers to receive recognition. Public praise may be welcome, uncomfortable or inappropriate when the contribution involves sensitive work.
Credit shared effort accurately. Do not turn a team result into a celebration of the most visible presenter.
Recognition is also not a substitute for fair workload, development opportunities or appropriate compensation. A thank-you should accompany responsible management, not replace it.
A hypothetical conversation practice map
Imagine a manager notices that weekly reviews produce long discussion but uncertain follow-through. She chooses one clarity practice: close each agenda item with the decision, owner and next review point.
After the next meeting, she asks two participants what remains unclear. They identify that the owner is named, but the authority to approve a change is still ambiguous.
At the following review, she adds that authority to the closing summary. She has adjusted the behaviour based on evidence from the work.
This hypothetical is a learning exercise, not proof that a meeting format will produce a particular performance improvement.
You can use the same approach for listening or disagreement: choose a behaviour, try it, ask what changed and adapt.
Evaluate the conversation rather than your image
Ask whether people know what to do, whether the relevant concern was heard and whether the next decision has an owner. These are more useful observations than whether you sounded impressive.
Beware of measuring skill through personality. A quiet colleague may explain a difficult issue precisely; a confident speaker may leave the decision unresolved.
For further practice, use Peak Belt’s clear-communication guide and conflict guide, alongside TrueNorth.
Make room for different ways of contributing
Some colleagues think best aloud; others produce a stronger answer after reviewing information. Where the decision permits, circulate the question beforehand and accept concise written input. Do not judge the quality of a contribution by the speed or confidence of delivery alone. The practical standard is whether the team receives relevant information in time to use it.
Choose one recurring conversation this week. Decide what the team should be able to do afterwards, then practise the behaviour that makes that outcome more likely.
AI-assisted researched guidance from PeakBelt. Hypothetical examples are labelled in the text. See our editorial approach.