Communication skills
Communication is more than talking.
29 competencies. 1 voice.
Competency 7: Communication skills
Communication skills reveal how people listen, make information understandable, coordinate and contribute to a healthy communication climate. The competency takes shape in direct interaction, collaboration and how an organisation enables conversations. What people say matters. What others understand and can do with it makes the difference.
A familiar workplace situation
A project leader presents the new scheduling system. The steps appear on a clear slide, the benefits have been explained and nobody asks a question. She finishes feeling satisfied. An hour later, a colleague hears that two employees do not know who will transfer their existing appointments. A third thinks the system is mainly intended to monitor her work.
The message was clear to the speaker but acquired different meanings for the recipients. The colleague brings the topic back to the team. He asks which step is still unclear and what concern lies behind it. The project leader discovers both missing practical information and a question about trust. These questions require different answers.
They clarify the division of tasks, discuss what the system does and does not record, and agree on a follow-up moment. Three things become visible in the same meeting: listening and explaining, connecting perspectives and creating room to express concerns.
This is the layered nature of communication skills. A well worded message can fail. A quiet question can move a conversation forward. How do you know whether your intention has also become the other person’s understanding?
What are communication skills?
Nieuwenhuis (2010) defines communication skills as conveying ideas and information clearly, orally and in writing, so that their essence is understood. This includes using available communication tools and choosing an appropriate way to communicate for the situation and purpose.
This definition involves more than language proficiency. People need to organise information, distinguish the main point from the details, connect with the recipient and check what the message has achieved. Listening is an active process: observing, asking further questions, checking meaning and, where necessary, revising one’s own judgement.
Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) connect communication competence to knowledge, skills and motivation. Their approach requires both effectiveness and appropriateness. Effectiveness means communication contributes to its purpose. Appropriateness means the approach fits the relationship and context. A sharp instruction may be necessary in immediate danger; the same tone can block a reflective conversation.
Communication therefore does not always need to be warm, extensive or persuasive. Sometimes a brief boundary helps, sometimes a precise explanation, sometimes a silence that gives someone time to think. The competency lies in recognising what is needed and adjusting behaviour when the response calls for it.
A role, a skill or a behavioural competency?
A role does not prove it
A communications adviser, teacher or manager has many communication tasks. The job title does not prove competence. A technical specialist can also listen exceptionally well, explain complex information and repair misunderstandings.
More than a skill
Presenting, writing, giving feedback and active listening are skills people can practise. The competency also requires choosing: which skill helps here, for this purpose, with this person and under these circumstances?
Connected behaviour
Knowledge, motivation, skills and context come together. People understand what is needed, take others seriously and adapt their approach. Communication then becomes visible in recurring behaviour, including when differences or tension arise.
This distinction makes development more precise. People who explain content clearly but avoid criticism need a different exercise from those who listen carefully but struggle to formulate a position. One general communication course does not automatically serve both.
Scientific foundations
Communication is studied through individual competence, organisational communication, team learning and channel choice. These perspectives complement one another. They also explain why a good speaker, a satisfied employee and a safe team represent different things.
Understanding goes beyond accurate transmission
Spitzberg and Cupach’s model (1984) clarifies why knowing, being able and being willing are all necessary. People may know conversation techniques but fail to use them under pressure. Others may express themselves exceptionally well while showing little willingness to explore another person’s meaning. Competence becomes visible through its application.
Combining effectiveness and appropriateness prevents a narrow assessment. An employee may push through a decision and achieve the immediate goal while trust declines. Conversely, a pleasant conversation may end without a clear agreement. Communication quality requires attention to both consequences.
Communication satisfaction and job satisfaction
Downs and Hazen (1977) developed the Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire. It treats communication as several experiences deserving separate attention, including feedback, contact with supervisors and information from the organisation. Sharma, Lampley and Good (2015) found a strong positive association with job satisfaction among employees at one educational institution, with a correlation of 0.88.
This is a clear association, not proof that better communication alone makes people happier. Both measurements concerned the experiences of the same employees. The practical lesson is more focused: ask whether information is relevant, understandable and usable as well as whether people receive enough of it.
Psychological safety and team learning
Edmondson (1999) studied 51 teams and found an association between psychological safety and learning behaviour. This concerns the perceived room to share a question, mistake or different insight without unacceptable social consequences. A team may communicate extensively yet learn little when important information remains unspoken.
Google studied 180 teams for Project Aristotle. Its own analysis identified five relevant team dynamics: psychological safety, dependability, structure and clarity, meaning, and impact (Google re:Work, n.d.). This research took place within Google; it offers useful starting points rather than a universal ranking for every organisation.
More information is not always the solution
Daft and Lengel (1986) distinguish a lack of information from ambiguity. When information is lacking, facts are missing. With ambiguity, people give the same facts different meanings. An additional document may help solve the first problem; the second often requires an exchange of views.
This leads to a useful question about channels: does someone primarily need to receive information, or do interpretations need to be explored? Written communication provides a record and preparation time. A conversation allows immediate clarification. For a sensitive decision, a combination can help: information beforehand, dialogue afterwards and then a clear confirmation.
Ease of speaking and listening are different qualities
Sims (2017) investigated empathic listening and assertive communication through self-reports from 245 adults. Agreeableness and openness each contributed to predicting active empathic listening. The research underlines that communication competence includes several behavioural qualities. Self-reports describe how people experience themselves; observation and feedback remain relevant.
A recurring research insight: examine purpose, an appropriate approach, received meaning and the room to respond. The number of words or messages is not a reliable substitute.
Why this competency has so much impact
Communication makes expertise accessible. An analysis gains shared value when others understand it. A decision becomes implementable when people know what it means. An error can prompt learning when it is discussed promptly and carefully. This competency therefore connects many other qualities to everyday practice.
Individual employee
Clear expectations and room for questions can support a sense of control, connection and ownership. Lack of clarity can drain energy: people must guess what counts, repair information or repeatedly defend why they understood something differently.
Team
Listening, summarising and checking agreements help make differences visible. Teams can combine knowledge and discuss dependencies. Effective meetings also clarify what is settled, where differences remain and who takes the next steps.
Organisation
A reliable communication climate helps signals from delivery reach decision makers. It supports coordination between teams and makes change discussable. Value emerges when information can also affect choices.
The relationship with happiness at work therefore runs through concrete experiences: clarity, being heard, meaning and influence. Communication can contribute to these, but it does not replace a manageable workload or appropriate autonomy. A pleasant conversation about structural overload loses meaning when priorities and capacity repeatedly stay the same.
Why organisations often misjudge this competency
A first error is confusing visibility with quality. People who formulate quickly, present easily and speak often can appear communicatively strong. This does not yet reveal whether they listen, write carefully or adapt their message. A quiet colleague may ask questions that expose a misunderstanding.
A second error is treating harmony as proof. A conversation without tension may be pleasant while important objections remain unspoken. Agreement also needs exploration: does someone truly agree, understand the decision or find disagreement too risky? The absence of questions does not prove shared understanding.
A third error is allowing one situation to represent the whole competency. People may be strong in customer contact and less effective in coordination between departments. An executive may explain direction clearly and respond defensively to personal criticism. Ask about multiple situations and behaviour at different levels.
A fourth error is disregarding the environment. Missing information, limited speaking time, language differences and negative experiences with disagreement influence what becomes visible. This does not remove personal responsibility, but it makes assessment more complete.
When assessing, ask: what was the purpose, what did the other person do, what adjustment followed and what showed that understanding had emerged? Also examine what did not work.
The three levels of the competency
Nieuwenhuis (2010) distinguishes listening and conveying, sending and receiving information effectively and efficiently, and ensuring a healthy communication climate. Below, these movements are developed as operational, tactical and strategic behaviour. The levels differ in scope, context, time horizon and complexity; strategic behaviour is not automatically better.
Operational
How do we understand each other in this interaction? Focus: listening, speaking, writing and checking understanding.
Tactical
How do we connect information and perspectives? Focus: coordination between people, interests and situations.
Strategic
Which communication climate helps the organisation? Focus: clarity, mutual exchange and room for questions over time.
Operational: listening and conveying
Operational communication stays close to direct interaction. Nieuwenhuis’s description includes clear structure, adapting language to the audience, speaking intelligibly, writing concisely, active listening and checking whether the message has been understood.
What does this behaviour look like?
- Identifies the main point and clarifies the requested action.
- Asks further questions and summarises before reaching a conclusion.
- Adjusts language, pace and the amount of information.
- Checks meaning and confirms relevant agreements.
Connection to research
The criteria of effectiveness and appropriateness help assess behaviour here. The question is both whether the explanation is correct and whether recipients can use it and have room to respond.
Main strength
The strength is clarity combined with attention. This may appear in a precise handover or a quiet question. Ease of speaking is not a prerequisite; listening and structuring can reinforce one another.
Possible pitfall
Under pressure, people may speed up, repeat themselves or respond before understanding the question. Careful listening can also become reluctance to express a position. Nodding or silence is sometimes mistaken for understanding too quickly.
Practical example
An employee receives criticism of a schedule. She asks which part is not workable and summarises the response. She then explains the reasoning and confirms who will investigate the adjustment. The conversation ends with a concrete next step rather than a repetition of her original explanation.
Tactical: coordinating between people and situations
Tactical communication connects information needs and perspectives within a process. Nieuwenhuis mentions making contact in different social settings, building a logical argument, holding attention, being open to discussion and checking whether information has reached its audience.
What does this behaviour look like?
- Identifies who needs which information.
- Builds an argument around its purpose, the audience’s prior knowledge and the audience itself.
- Makes different interpretations and interests discussable.
- Chooses appropriate channels and records shared agreements.
Connection to research
The distinction between missing information and ambiguity helps design a meeting. Are facts missing, or do parties understand the same situation differently? This determines whether explanation, exploration or a decision is most needed.
Main strength
The strength is coherence. People clarify how different contributions affect one another. Coordination does not need to produce complete consensus: objections can remain while the next steps are clear.
Possible pitfall
Excessive coordination can delay decisions and make the message overly cautious. The opposite is seeking efficiency by closing discussion too soon. Both cause relevant information to disappear.
Practical example
IT, sales and customer service use different criteria for a successful implementation. The project leader asks each department to identify its needs, distinguishes technical requirements from customer questions and agrees on decision points. His contribution lies in connecting perspectives to a workable process.
Strategic: promoting a healthy communication climate
Strategic communication focuses on the broader climate. Nieuwenhuis emphasises needs, interests, emotions and views, making complex subjects understandable, encouraging others to communicate clearly and promoting communication between people. This goes beyond presenting a vision.
What does this behaviour look like?
- Recognises groups that consistently receive insufficient information.
- Makes complex subjects and uncertainty discussable.
- Encourages questions, disagreement and mutual exchange.
- Organises feedback and maintains consistency over time.
Connection to research
Psychological safety provides a lens on this climate. The relevant question is what people expect when they speak up. One good conversation technique is insufficient when policy and daily behaviour send a different signal.
Main strength
The strength is continuity: communication remains accessible and credible, including during change. Providing direction and leaving room for new information are both necessary. Professionals without a formal management role can also contribute.
Possible pitfall
An organisation may promise openness while critical questions have little influence. A consistent message can also become rigid when new information has no place. Clarify what is settled, what is being investigated and who will report back.
Practical example
An organisation introduces AI. Executives clarify goals and boundaries; teams discuss consequences for their work. Open questions are assigned an owner and a follow-up moment. Strategic communication here lies in organising continuing exchange as well as making a convincing announcement.
The three levels reinforce one another
Operational communication makes understanding concrete. Tactical communication connects conversations to people, interests and processes. Strategic communication focuses on the conditions under which information is shared and discussed. The levels influence one another in both directions.
Without operational clarity, good communication agreements remain abstract. Without tactical coordination, conversations stay separate and lack coherence. Without attention to the climate, people may remain reluctant even when a manager invites questions.
Moving between levels does not mean everyone must master every level to the maximum. A customer service employee has different emphases from a project leader. A team manager may be responsible for the climate while also wanting to practise a personally difficult conversation. The development question is which additional behaviour the role and situation need.
Related competencies: communication as a connecting point
Communication makes many other competencies visible while also being supported by them. The following grouping describes substantive connections; it is not a fixed formula for predicting scores or behaviour.
Closely related
Empathy helps explore perspectives. Persuasiveness helps make ideas transferable. Networking connects communication to relationships and information exchange over time.
Supporting
Stress tolerance, courage, self-confidence and integrity help examine how people remain clear and credible under pressure. An honest message sometimes requires more courage than language proficiency.
Visible in delivery
Collaboration, commitment, coaching and customer focus take shape partly through conversations. Organisational awareness helps adapt the approach to relationships, interests and decision making.
The combination produces more precise development questions. People who persuade easily can examine how much room objections receive. Those who sense others’ needs well can practise expressing a boundary. Those with extensive organisational knowledge can check whether their chosen language remains understandable for new colleagues.
The conversation shifts from a general judgement to the route through which communication works: what do people notice, how do they weigh it and what behaviour follows? The connections become useful when concrete situations support the interpretation.
Effective use starts with the right fit
A vacancy asking only for good communication skills remains too general. Does it involve clear customer explanations, coordination between teams, explaining complex decisions or maintaining an open communication climate? These requirements call for different combinations of behaviour.
Person-Environment Fit helps examine the alignment between people and their work environment. In a meta-analysis of 172 studies, Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman and Johnson (2005) compared forms of fit including task, organisation, group and supervisor. For communication, the relevant distinction is that someone may fit the task while the way people collaborate offers little room for their contribution.
The same employee may listen carefully in a small meeting and barely have a chance to speak in a fast digital meeting. A professional may write clearly but lack access to decision makers. Information, speaking time, preparation, safety and authority therefore influence what becomes visible.
Ask which communication behaviour the role needs and which conditions enable it. Fit requires more than the highest possible score.
Development may be needed on both sides. The employee practises more direct wording; the team agrees on preparation and speaking time. A personal development point is then connected to the context in which it must work.
Why communication skills matter today
Communication remains relevant as work and technology change. LinkedIn ranked communication first in its list of the most in-demand skills for 2024. The World Economic Forum (2025) identifies leadership and social influence, empathy and active listening among important building blocks. According to that report, employers expect 39% of current core skills to change by 2030. This expectation increases the need to make new working methods and roles understandable.
AI changes both the production and assessment of communication. Text can be drafted, translated or summarised quickly. Someone must then assess whether the content is correct, what information is missing and whether the tone fits the recipient. A professionally worded message can conceal uncertainty. Substantive judgement, listening and responsibility for the message therefore remain important.
McKinsey (2025) reported that 92% of the companies studied wanted to increase investment in AI, while only 1% of leaders considered their organisation mature in its deployment. The reported survey findings mainly concern US workplaces. The study identifies leadership alignment and explainability among the challenges. For communication, this means discussing goals, boundaries and consequences alongside introducing tools.
The competency is also under pressure. Hybrid collaboration spreads contact across conversations, chat, documents and video. Under time pressure, information is forwarded faster than meaning is checked. During reorganisations, managers must explain uncertainty while answers are still missing. More messages can then produce more interpretations.
Gallup (2026) reports that in 2025, 20% of employees worldwide were engaged and 40% experienced substantial stress the previous day. These figures do not measure communication skills or prove a communication problem. They do show a work context in which attention and room for conversation cannot be taken for granted.
The practical tension is recognisable: organisations want faster communication, while careful understanding sometimes requires slowing down. An extra question before implementation can prevent duplicated work. Explicitly naming uncertainty can be more helpful than a reassuring message that later proves unsustainable.
Why self-insight makes the difference
Self-insight helps explain why communication flows easily in one situation and stalls in another. People may explain a topic clearly yet struggle with a critical response. Others sense people’s needs well but find it difficult to express a boundary. The connections between communication skills and other competencies make these differences understandable and guide development.
An example: explaining clearly yet losing connection
Consider a professional who prepares a proposal carefully and presents it persuasively. During the explanation, the message is clear. As soon as a colleague raises an objection, he responds with more arguments. He wants to show that the proposal has been thoroughly considered. Meanwhile, the colleague experiences less and less room to explain the real concern. Much is being said while mutual understanding declines.
In this situation, the operational side of communication is clearly visible: organising information, expressing a position and explaining understandably. Analytical ability helps substantiate the content; persuasiveness helps convey it. The tactical challenge arises when different perspectives need to be coordinated. The situation then calls for listening, empathy and collaboration.
The insight that brings clarity
The professional tries to move the conversation forward by explaining better. The next step lies in understanding better what is holding the other person back. His strength in explaining has greater impact when he first makes room for the objection.
An appropriate response is: “What is the biggest risk in this proposal for you?” He then summarises what he has heard and checks whether it is correct. Only then does he connect his own arguments to that concern. Organisational awareness also helps investigate whether the objection stems from capacity, responsibility or another department’s interests. A debate about positions becomes a conversation about what is needed to move forward together.
What happens when tension rises
Communication is also affected by what a situation demands of someone. Under criticism, stress tolerance can help maintain attention to the content. Self-confidence supports calmly taking a position. Courage helps make a difficult subject or personal boundary discussable. Integrity keeps people honest about what can and cannot be promised. These competencies explain why language proficiency alone is sometimes insufficient to handle a conversation well.
The strategic side emerges when the same tension repeatedly occurs in a team. Development then also concerns agreements that improve communication between people: how are objections given room, when is a decision made and how do people hear what has been done with their input? Vision and leadership can help provide direction. Collaboration and commitment ensure those agreements are upheld in daily conversations.
Learning style and personality emphases make the exercise personal
A Thinker may recognise careful preparation and weighing arguments. The exercise is then to ask questions earlier in the conversation and connect personal analysis to what the other person says. A Doer may respond more easily and experiment directly. Deliberately slowing down can help here: summarise first, then answer. Both routes connect existing strength to additional behaviour.
With the Achiever personality emphasis, the desire to have impact or make progress may take centre stage. This helps make a message powerful, while a conversation sometimes requires room for uncertainty and difference. With the Mediator emphasis, the strength may lie in calmness and connection. The development step may then be expressing a personal position clearly, even when this creates tension. Recognition lies in asking which behaviour comes naturally and what requires deliberate attention in a particular situation.
Kolb (1984) connects learning to experience, reflection, conceptualisation and experimentation. For communication, this means having a conversation, reflecting on its effect, understanding what happened and trying something different in the next conversation. Learning style and personal preferences help choose a useful starting point; feedback reveals whether the chosen approach works.
A suitable development exercise
Choose one recurring conversation where communication is difficult. Commit to asking one clarifying question and summarising the answer before responding. Afterwards, ask what became clearer for the other person and what still needs attention. This lets you practise listening and coordination in a situation where your strength in explaining is already present.
The outcome is more concrete than “I need to communicate better”. People understand where their message is strong, which additional behaviour the conversation needs and how to practise it. Self-insight helps make the step from expressing your meaning well to understanding together what is needed.
What this means for organisations
For recruitment, assessment starts with recognisable work situations. Ask candidates, for example, to explain a complex decision, explore an objection or write a brief handover. Ask about purpose, adjustment and follow-up. This reveals more than confidence during a job interview.
For HR and managers, development requires both practice and enabling conditions. These include relevant information, preparation time, clear decision making and follow-up agreements. Communication training alone cannot repair a process in which employees repeatedly receive contradictory instructions.
For teams, it helps to agree what is recorded in writing, when a conversation is needed and how mistakes or concerns are discussed. Check whether questions are actually followed up. An invitation to openness loses meaning when signals remain unanswered.
For executives, responsibility also includes consistency. Communication about trust, autonomy or learning must be recognisable in daily choices. Name uncertainty honestly and clarify which information could prompt decisions to be adjusted.
How Voice Your Future makes this competency visible
Voice Your Future makes communication skills visible within a broader personal profile. The distribution across operational, tactical and strategic behaviour reveals different emphases: direct listening and explaining, coordinating information and perspectives, and contributing to an environment in which people can communicate well with one another.
Connections with other competencies make the result illuminating. Analytical ability and persuasiveness can help present a message clearly and powerfully. Listening and empathy help reveal how it reaches the other person. Collaboration and organisational awareness connect the conversation to shared goals and interests. Courage, self-confidence and stress tolerance help maintain a personal position when tension rises.
A development question consequently gains a personal direction. For someone who explains easily, the next step may lie in asking further questions. For someone who coordinates extensively, it may concern choosing more clearly and setting boundaries. For someone strong in individual conversations, development may lie in improving communication between people or teams.
From a score to connected insight
Which communication strengths are already present? Which other qualities support them? Where does tension arise, and which additional behaviour makes the difference? Combining this with learning style and personality emphases helps choose an approach that is recognisable and practical.
The conversation around the profile connects these insights to situations from one’s own work. People recognise their approach, understand why a conversation sometimes stalls and see which focused step can strengthen their communication. This produces insight beyond a general judgement about communicating well or less well.
The essence of this competency
Communication skills connect intention and understanding. Operationally, this happens through listening and explaining. Tactically, through coordinating information and perspectives. Strategically, through promoting a climate in which people can understand, ask questions and contribute.
Quality lies in appropriate choices: what needs to be said, which response deserves exploration and which next step makes the message usable? Happiness at work and collaboration can benefit when the environment also provides room for influence, attention and implementation.
Good communication continues beyond what you have said. It keeps exploring what the other person has understood and what you can do with that together.
References
Literature and reports used on communication competence, organisational communication, team learning, work experience and development. The practical examples are illustrative.
Daft, R. L., & Lengel, R. H. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management Science, 32(5), 554–571. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.32.5.554
Downs, C. W., & Hazen, M. D. (1977). A factor analytic study of communication satisfaction. Journal of Business Communication, 14(3), 63–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/002194367701400306
Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999
Gallup. (2026). State of the global workplace: 2026 report. Global data summary. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/697904/state-of-the-global-workplace-global-data.aspx
Google re:Work. (n.d.). Understand team effectiveness. https://rework.withgoogle.com/intl/en/guides/understand-team-effectiveness
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice Hall.
Kristof-Brown, A. L., Zimmerman, R. D., & Johnson, E. C. (2005). Consequences of individuals’ fit at work: A meta-analysis of person–job, person–organization, person–group, and person–supervisor fit. Personnel Psychology, 58(2), 281–342. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005.00672.x
LinkedIn. (2024). The most in-demand skills for 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-strategy/linkedin-most-in-demand-hard-and-soft-skills
McKinsey & Company. (2025). Superagency in the workplace: Empowering people to unlock AI’s full potential. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/tech-and-ai/our-insights/superagency-in-the-workplace-empowering-people-to-unlock-ais-full-potential-at-work
Nieuwenhuis, M. A. (2010). The Art of Management. Deel 2 (10th revised edition). Lulu.
Sharma, P., Lampley, J., & Good, D. (2015). Organizational communication: Perceptions of staff members’ level of communication satisfaction and job satisfaction. Journal of Academic Administration in Higher Education, 11(1), 43–54. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1139334.pdf
Sims, C. M. (2017). Do the Big-Five personality traits predict empathic listening and assertive communication? International Journal of Listening, 31(3), 163–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/10904018.2016.1202770
Spitzberg, B. H., & Cupach, W. R. (1984). Interpersonal communication competence. Sage.
World Economic Forum. (2025). The Future of Jobs Report 2025. https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/in-full/3-skills-outlook/
