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By Cathy Baylis – RecruitLoop

In times of instant messaging, email is still one of the most popular forms of business communication. In 2022, the number of email users in the world is set to grow to 4.3 billion.

The rise of social media still hasn’t affected the popularity and widespread use of email. Leaders, more than anyone, have to be adept at email communication. It’s their main tool for accomplishing daily tasks relating to communication and correspondence.

To be an effective leader, you have to be consistent in your communication with both employees and business partners. Use these 5 email tips to establish effective leadership and correctly depict all your ideas through email communication.

Implement them, and you will immediately notice improvements in communication within the entire hierarchy.

1. Be moderately positive

When writing emails as a leader, a reckless expression is unacceptable. Every employee is a team member and the way you communicate directly affects people’s performance.

Our basic nature dictates that we seek praise from others around us, so being negative and behaving in an admonishing manner is unacceptable. If one of your team members made a mistake, never mention it in group emails or begin the email with a negative statement.

Mistakes happen to everyone, and it’s in everyone’s interest that they don’t get repeated. Thus, you need to encourage and build trust with the employees. Sounding positive will extract much more effort from everyone, just because they know you still believe in them. However, this doesn’t mean you should restrain yourself from remarks.

  • What matters most is just how you word your constructive criticism when responding to a person.
  • Don’t use too many words and sugarcoat the remark. You should always follow it with a positive-sounding sentence, one that acknowledges effort encourages.
  • If there is a serious matter involved, avoid discussing it in detail over an email. Primarily, you need to mention the problem and invite those needed to discuss it. This shows that you’re a serious leader who respects the importance of face-to-face conversation.
  • Never be afraid to ask questions. Your interlocutors will be more inspired knowing that you have taken an interest in something they said.

2. Plan your communication window for better effectiveness

Did you know that leaders spend approximately 80% of their workday communicating? As impressive at it seems, too much email communication can have an adverse effect on both you and your ventures.

Whether you’re speaking to clients or planning a project with your associates, you need to be at the top of your game. If you’re tired, you won’t be able to recognize important details or give effective and useful input to those who ask.

Everyone understands that leaders are humans too. Have a 1-hour window that you will dedicate to something else. It can be a lunch break or planning a marketing campaign. Regardless, you need a certain amount of time to give your brain a rest.

Communication strains our mind in a way which many of us don’t realize. It takes a lot of effort to understand the point of someone’s words and give an effective answer or ask a question.

With a break in your communication window, you will be able to respond to email in a much better manner. As your brain is rested, you will type faster, be more concentrated and focus on every task exclusively.

You should avoid checking your business mail when you’re resting at home. Be responsible and make sure your email communication time is effectively used.

3. Choose your words carefully

As a leader, your words can motivate or discourage, depending on what you insert in an email message. It is your job to encourage employees and be a positive representative when talking to clients. Therefore, don’t hurry when writing emails. Nobody will think highly of you as a leader if you respond with sloppy messages that were written in 5 minutes.

Take the time to respond slowly and be sure you understand the person. Ask if something is unclear. The goal of effective email communication is to reach a goal properly, not to reach it fast. Take a deep breath and walk around the office if you feel overwhelmed. After you’ve calmed down, you won’t risk erratic responses and misunderstandings.

Another important aspect of effective leadership is campaign emails. When you’re launching a new product or service, it’s important to mass-send emails that will notify all important clients, associates, and colleagues.

Campaign emails are sensitive to write, and you should never create them if you have a large workload. Instead, outsource emails, using various proofreading and writing services. Some of the best are:

  • Wizessay – this online service specializes in correcting and creating business emails. They can both create sets of new emails for a campaign or correct ones that you wrote.
  • Australian Essays – with this proofreading service, you can ensure that all emails will be free of spelling mistakes and that the tone is appropriate. They also specialize in research papers and whitepapers.
  • Assignment Geek – nothing beats human editing. If you’re in need of urgent email corrections, Assignment Geek can deliver the final version in less than 12 hours in certain cases.

Remember, nobody knows how much time you’ve spent preparing an email. Don’t rush and use the time to get the best possible product. Trying to create a concept as quickly as possible is nothing but your ego talking. A good leader prioritizes results more than proving his own capabilities to himself.

4. Proposals give you a bit more freedom

When you’re communicating about routine matters with your employees, it’s important to be swift. After all, sending information is all about efficiency, right? Not quite. One notable exception is business proposals.

Business proposals give you the opportunity to be as verbose as you wish, using all the necessary syntactical tools to convert your ideas into sentences. When you’re sending an associate or business partner ideas, don’t hesitate to be descriptive.

  • New projects require significant analysis. Your team members and anyone involved will appreciate the myriad of details they will understand from your emails.
  • The best adjectives are necessary ones. The ones that exist as the first part of an idiom. They make the description seem more familiar to the reader, allowing them to visualize what you wanted to say.
  • Use strong verbs and cut down on the adverbs. You need to send a clear message. If you need more details, insert more verbs and use shorter sentences. An active sentence is more effective than a passive one.

5. Encourage two-way communication

Use various linguistic tools to encourage feedback. Take a basic thought and write it down. For practice, try to develop one single idea in multiple ways, so that they urge the reader to respond and express his own opinion.  Use tools such as:

  • Rhetorical questions. Don’t overuse them. The ideal spot for inserting a rhetorical question is at the end of a paragraph, as a summarizing tool.
  • Direct questions. Never beat around the bush. If you need to know something, you have to act like a leader. Inquire directly, without any unnecessary details within or around the question.

Effective leaders don’t emphasize speed of response. Instead, they want to encourage quality two-way communication. Take your time, don’t hesitate to use tools and respect other people’s opinions and points of view.

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