Communication is one of the core crafts of leadership. [A craft is a combination of learnable skills and art used to produce something beautiful and useful.]
Leaders need to communicate to groups. I encourage you to shift your mindset from “I’m talking with a group” to “I’m talking with a series of individuals.” You know how to talk with a single person, right? Ok, do that! Start with one person, then shift your attention to the next person, and so on. The whole group hears your conversation as you’re going person to person.
Writing a message? Same mindset – you’re writing to representative people in that distribution list. One of the reasons the typical corporate memo sounds bland is they’re writing to a faceless, non-person named “DL-BigGroupofPeopleIDon’tKnow1234.”
Make your communication to groups more personal and you’ll connect better. We’re always communicating, so the question is whether you’re connecting.