What does your facial expressions, body language and tone of voice communicate to your team?

As leaders the ability to engage our people has many moving parts to it, one of which what we communicate non-verbally.

For example, I can be a very serious and passionate person. Unfortunately, sometimes that comes off as negative. When my kids were young, I could have been talking about something very passionately and one of my kids would say, “Dad, why are you mad?” I had to explain I wasn’t mad I was very passionate about what I was talking about.

As leaders we need to develop a great deal of awareness of our body language and tone of voice. We need to be aware of not only what our words are saying but what our tone and body language communicates.

Here is a simple place to start. Ask yourself, am I communicating through my facial expressions, body language or tone of voice that I’m:
Happy or Sad
Passionate or Angry
Approving or Disapproving
In Agreement or Disagreement
Concerned or Could care less
Interested or Distant
Warm or cold

How our message is received can be the difference between loyal followership or disgruntled compliance. And that could mean the difference between effectiveness and ineffectiveness.