An assertive, self-confident team leader uses a variety of coping techniques to deal with the challenges of interpersonal communication and to enhance influencing behavior.
Building Rapport With the Team
Rapport is the relation of harmony, conformity, accord, or affinity to support an outcome. The intended outcome is more likely with rapport than if it is not present. There is a sense of a shared understanding with the team members.
Mirroring – matching certain behaviors of a person with whom you are interacting — is the process used to establish rapport. There are four techniques of mirroring to build rapport.
- Voice tone or tempo
- Matching breathing rate
- Matching movement rhythms
- Matching body postures
Levels of rapport range on a continuum from a low of tolerance to a high of seduction. For business, strive for levels of neutral, lukewarm, understanding, identification, or warmth, all in the center of the continuum.
Related: Leadership Outcome Based Team Building Activities
Expressing Disagreement
Representation systems determine by the brain give us clues about how individuals process information. People can be classified as predominantly:
- Visual (The things we see)
- Auditory (The things we hear)
- Kinesthetic (The things we feel, touch, taste, or smell)
Both the types of words used, and the speaker’s eye movement provide indicators of the system type. In a conversation, once we understand which type our conversation partner is, we can use the same system language to match the person’s type, helping to ensure more reception to our message.
Coming to Consensus
Whether there is a disagreement on a particular issue, or you simply need to get the team to agree, Neuro-linguistics offers a solution. To plan, make the following decisions:
- What do you want your outcome to be?
- How will you know when the outcome is achieved?
- Who will attend the meeting? (Important: Each person invited to the meeting must have the information needed for two out of three agenda items.)
Then, establish rapport as the team members come into the meeting.
Now you are ready to use the PEGASUS model to achieve your desired outcomes.
Present outcomes
Explain evidence
Gain agreement on outcomes
Activate sensory acuity
Summarize each major decision
Use the relevancy challenge
Summarize the next step.
