#33: What's your communication style?

How to develop a tone of voice that's in line with how you lead

When every day is anything but “business as usual”, how can leaders manage and maintain their communication style to be the voice employees need to hear? After all, it’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it that matters. 

The answer lies in brand strategy—where the voice, tone, and style of a brand shape the perception and relationship with its customers.

A brand’s tone of voice enables the relevant teams to communicate strategically, driving forward a clear and consistent message to deliver outcomes. It brings the brand personality to life and shapes how the company talks to its customers in good times and bad. The same applies to a leader’s tone of voice.

Defining your tone of voice as a leader can help keep your internal communications on point and bring out your best, especially when you’re stressed or worn out and your team is counting on you. 

I’m Remy 👋 I work as a strategist and verbal designer (read: word nerd for hire) at startups, scale-ups, and corporate innovation ventures. This week, I’m taking over Pass It On to walk you through the what, why, and how to define your tone of voice as a team lead.

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1. Choose your keywords

To get started, think back to your best moments as a team lead or manager. Whether in-person or online, conjure the memory of that interaction and what made it effective. How did you sound? What words did you use and why? How did the person opposite you react?

Building on this example, write down four or five keywords that characterize your communication style. Consider how these keywords complement one another to reflect the whole of you. Together these keywords form the basis of your tone of voice and reflect your character as a leader.

Now explore the extremes, how each keyword can be taken too far. When developing a tone of voice, it is equally important to know how you do want to sound as it is to know how you do not want to sound.

For example:

• Compassionate but not coddling

• Direct but not blunt

• Confident but not cocky

• Interested but not intrusive

• Serious but not stiff

How you communicate with your team will not always capture all of these words at once. Each situation calls for different emphasis. For example, sometimes more direct, less interested; other times more compassionate, less serious. These keywords provide guideposts to help keep your communications consistent and in line with what kind of leader you want to be.

2. Get ready to adapt

To adapt your tonality for any given situation, you need to orient your tone of voice to the needs of the employee or team opposite you. This is especially true when navigating difficult conversations: the substance of what you say may be matter of fact, but your delivery can either help or hurt how the conversation unfolds. 

Building on the idea that leadership is situational, you can map your tonality based on the leadership style best suited to the situation. Ken Blanchard’s SLII behavioral model outlines four styles depending on the situation: delegating, supporting, coaching, and directing. Which tone of voice keywords are most relevant for each mode? How does this play out when you’re speaking to someone in real-time versus writing online? 

For each style you adopt, write down which tone of voice keywords take the lead. Continuing with the above example, when you are delegating high-stakes responsibilities, you may lead with Serious and Compassionate to stress the importance of the task-at-hand but also make it clear your team can come to you for help if needed.

Curious about brand tone of voice? Check out this short intro 👇

3. Learn from the past

A good way to stress test your tone of voice is to compare it with previous communications. Pull up past emails or Slack messages that required intentional messaging: business updates or team announcements, timely or sensitive conversations. 

For the communications that mirror your tone of voice, what works well? And for those that deviate from your desired tonality, what would you change? Consider the following details:

Accessibility—How easy is it to understand? Are these words you would use in everyday conversation? Are there phrases or idioms that might not be universally relatable?

Length—How long does it take to read or process? Are you prioritizing the most important information?  

Formality—How casual (or not) is your word choice? Do you write with full sentences or sometimes opt for shorthand? Does it sound more like a conversation with a friend or a teacher? Is it more comfortable or authoritative?

Expressiveness—How frequently do you use emoji or exclamation points? When is an emoji enough to communicate your meaning versus times when you need to spell it out?

Make note of your writing style and if there are any practices you want to incorporate into your tonality. For example, if one of your keywords is “Warm”, you could always acknowledge someone by name in email or chat replies. Especially when working remotely and relying on digital channels, it is worth taking the time to consider how the details create clarity or confusion.

4. Consider the broader context

As a final step to developing your tone of voice, consider it in context of other leaders on your team and across the company. Your tonality reflects the perspective you bring to the organization. It can be valuable to seek out those with different experiences and learn how they speak in ways similar and different to you. For example, there are myriad ways to embody and express a “Compassionate” tone of voice. By defining your tone of voice as a leader, you recognize your strengths and how they come to life in your communications.