Whether you are a team leader in a current project, a head of a division or a senior manager in a company, you need to communicate and negotiate with people on a daily basis. If you avoid negotiations at all costs, you’re missing opportunities hiding in plain sight. Furthermore, you may not even know that there is a conflict brewing somewhere behind your back, and it’s only a matter of time until a situation explodes. Yes, it all sounds catastrophic, but we hope you are not the leader who shies away from solving problems while they are still manageable and from making a good deal where possible. And probably that’s why you’re reading this: you know what successful negotiations can bring to your team and your organization. No one is born a professional negotiator, but everyone can improve negotiation skills and leverage their negotiation style to make the most of any situation out there. So how exactly can you get – or hone – those skills to be able to stand up to the challenge as a leader? Through training and regular practice, of course!
True Importance Of Good Negotiation Skills For A Leader
The importance of negotiation in leadership is hard to overestimate because the skills are a part of your professional identity. If you can – and do – negotiate successfully in situations big and small, you:
- Build a healthier working environment
Work is usually stressful as is, and unresolved disputes and unnecessary challenges only make the working environment even worse. The negotiation skills of a leader enable fast and efficient conflict-solving and pave the way for clear and open communication about difficult matters. Workplaces where people feel heard see lower employee turnover and have better key performance metrics.
- Minimize the risk of serious conflicts
Small differences and arguments inside teams and between larger departments are fine because they arise where the growth points are. Large-scale conflicts or arguments about crucial matters need attention before they spin out of control and put the whole project – or even a company – at risk. Negotiations with participation and mediation of a leader usually help settle matters before the breaking point is reached.
- Improve decision-making process
Good negotiation skills allow a leader to better evaluate a situation (internal or external), consider various perspectives and arrive at optimal decisions. Tradeoffs and BATNA, standing one’s ground and testing the waters – it all takes a good deal of knowledge and practice in negotiations. For a leader, it’s an absolute must.
- Boost collaboration and teamwork
Obviously, if a leader can listen, process the information and act accordingly, it serves as a good example for the rest of the team. More practically, a leader needs to distribute tasks, assign responsibilities and allocate resources in such a way that no one feels unduly overworked or overlooked in distribution of resources. These steps are impossible without efficient negotiations with the whole team.
- Create opportunities for innovation
Negotiations let everyone be heard and involved in decision-making or brainstorming. When a leader creates a healthy atmosphere conducive for generating new ideas, people are more willing to participate and are not afraid to offer their input. That’s the real process of boosting and nurturing innovation.
- Help an organization stay adaptable and sustainable
Everything changes over time, and sometimes changes are sudden and radical. To retain talents and to keep a company afloat in times of changes (whether planned or unexpected), a leader needs to negotiate with the team regularly and keep people updated. Properly conducted negotiations can help persuade people to stay even in times of challenges. Sometimes a fresh perspective of an employee can even change the course the company is following and help find a better way of development or a new direction for growth.
- Reduce the risk of burnout in employees
When people feel that they matter and their input matters, they are willing to contribute more in the workplace without feeling overburdened and empty. Meaningful work, true appreciation, and recognition from a leader boost morale and help people thrive. Negotiation is the key to creating this added value for your team.
Essential Negotiation Skills A Leader Needs To Acquire
Negotiation is a process involving much more than talking and shaking hands. Negotiation is a whole set of skills that support and enhance each other to enable mutual understanding and finding optimal solutions for all parties. So what types of negotiation skills need to be honed for a leader to become a truly efficient negotiator (and a communicator)?
Emotional Intelligence
Emotions always have a place in negotiations and communication (because they are an inherent part of human existence). It’s unreasonable to expect that ‘emotions will be left at the door.’ Instead, understanding the emotions of others and how they impact their decision-making – and accounting for it – is a prerequisite for building rapport and delivering the desired message to others. Emotional intelligence is a skill of recognising and acknowledging the emotions of others and acting accordingly. Emotions reflect different experiences, pain points, and allow looking beyond the surface of a conflict. Some emotions need validation, some need careful management, but they are a part of the negotiation process. Taking a ‘rational approach only’ is never going to work fully because it denies reality, so the better you can understand the emotions of others and tackle the underlying causes, the better outcome you’ll get from a negotiation episode.
Active Listening
Active listening means hearing what others say and understanding their motivations and needs. Active listening pays attention to everything – from words to silence, gestures, and non-verbal cues. Active listening is non-judgemental (at least initially), focused and features genuine interest in what others actually want and mean. This activity takes a lot of conscious effort; that’s why active listening is an obligatory negotiation skill to be mastered and polished. But it is this hearing and comprehension that work as a bridge between people. Learning to listen actively is one of the best ways to improve your negotiation skills for any occasion or situation. Obviously, it’s much easier to make an optimal decision that will satisfy all parties on the basis of carefully received and accurately interpreted information.
Decisiveness
If active listening paves the way for finding a solution, then decisiveness is what helps to conclude a deal. Decisiveness means you know when to stop, push forward for more, concede, or even walk away. It’s the willingness to say a final word and take responsibility for it that differentiates between empty and successful negotiations. Some say that it’s more of a gut feeling that you cannot acquire. But in reality, decisiveness arises from being prepared, knowing what you want, and also from experience that can be achieved only through real-life practice.
Flexibility
Plans can go south if something unexpected comes up during negotiations, so in addition to being prepared, it’s necessary to be able to improvise and adapt. It may seem like a lot, having plans and then changing them on the spot, but that’s why the process is called negotiation. It’s a back-and-forth exchange, and if some new information becomes known, it’s normal to change the plans or a vision of a desired outcome. So, being mentally prepared to follow plans and to change them if necessary is one of the most valuable skills you can have for negotiating successfully.
Influence and Persuasion
Yes, speaking and behaving persuasively is naturally a foundation of negotiations. Influencing stems from authority, and persuasion is the skill of finding the right arguments and delivering them at the right time. Persuasiveness can be trained, so while working on your negotiation skills, never skip the point of persuasion. To achieve a win-win solution that may lead to new collaborations and strong connections, you need to be not pushy but trustworthy and persuasive.
Tested Ways And Tools That Will Significantly Improve Your Negotiation Skills As A Leader
So if you are ready to improve negotiation skills as a leader in the workplace and become an even better negotiator, here are the steps you can take.
Take professional training courses in negotiations.
Professional help and supervised practice will give you the experience and insights that you won’t find elsewhere. The negotiation skills training from CMA Consulting will provide an environment to practice, learn, and better understand your strong sides and biases. After the training, you’ll have access to coaches and learning materials, so you’ll be able to ask questions from your hands-on experience and get focused and workable answers and tips.
Keep track of the negotiation process and later reflect on it.
Find out what worked and what did not work. Have negotiations recorded when possible and work through them again. You’ll see how your words impact others and how you react to others’ input, and it will help you to find the optimal negotiation approach for you. A good coach can then provide tips on why some approaches work and some don’t and what to do instead.
Don’t skip any chance to negotiate with someone.
Use every opportunity to improve negotiation skills as a leader ‘in the field,’ so to speak. Treat various working situations that require your intervention as potential space for negotiation training and growth, but always take them seriously. Approach every situation as a full-scale negotiation and behave accordingly. Listen, process the information, keep your goal in mind, and offer your preferred solution and an alternative solution. It will become a habit over time, so you won’t have to remind yourself to actually listen and let people tell their part of the story.
Practice active listening when possible.
Do it everywhere, from a routine meeting to chit-chat with someone you know. Focus on what a person says, follow their logic and reasoning, ask questions, and then try to sum up briefly what they’ve said (when it’s reasonable). First, it shows a person that you’ve been following their story, which builds trust. Second, you may be surprised how much information is lost or misinterpreted when we don’t pay proper attention to a speaking person. Clear communication and staying on the same page are key to success in most cases.
Get the habit of planning your meetings and talks.
Clearly define in advance what you want to say and why, and how you will try to win the audience. As a leader, you have a vision and a general idea of how to implement it. Careful planning, preparation, and discussion mapping add another dimension to your understanding of everything and are priceless when it comes to negotiations.
Never skip the research stage.
Always study the available information about the matter and people involved during the conflict resolution in your team or when preparing for important negotiations that can impact your company. When you can anticipate counterarguments and challenges, it’s much easier to work through them in advance and have tailored solutions and ideas at hand.
Train your emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is probably the most valuable skill you can have now, in your professional realm and everyday life. Pay attention not only to words and actions, but also to the emotions that people display – emotions can tell a lot more about the true nature of the problem than factual explanations (and ‘facts’ can also be emotions in disguise, like resentment, anger, jealousy, feeling of unfairness, etc.). Understanding the emotions of others, separating them from the events and actions, and acting upon this distinction allows you to settle conflicts and resolve situations much more efficiently and turn people into your allies along the way.
Practice persuasive speaking.
Whether you lead the negotiations or have the final say in the solutions and deals offered and negotiated by others, you need to be persuasive. The skill of persuasive speaking can be acquired, and a good training in persuasion can help greatly. You will learn some tricks of efficient speakers and influencers, and later put them into practice. Again, regular practice is a must. Observe what effect your words have on others and remember the tools and tricks that have the most beneficial impact in persuading others.
Final Words
We hope it’s not a discovery for you that you need good negotiation skills as a leader. Instead, we just want to push you to hone them constantly and never stop learning. So, pick a good negotiation training program with an experienced coach at CMA Consulting and challenge yourself to do it better this time. It will pay off for you, your team, and your company in the long run, and you’ll inspire everyone around you to be better versions of themselves as well.
