From our personal relationships to our professional connections, how we communicate is everything. Consider the various channels we may use on a daily basis: texting, emails, social media, work tools, and person-to-person.
This many channels open up opportunities for miscommunication to occur.
You’ve probably experienced this yourself – that moment when your carefully crafted email receives a completely unexpected response or when your clear instructions somehow lead to entirely different results.
In the modern workplace, communication breakdowns like this aren’t just frustrating—they’re costly, causing project delays, relationship strain, and missed opportunities.
“Our brains are inundated with so much information. And often we’re in total sensory overload,” explains Teresa Muller, communication expert and TaskHuman Coach. “If we stop to ensure that what we’re communicating is clear, we start to quiet a lot of the noise.”
In this article, Coach Teresa outlines five essential skills that form the foundation of effective workplace communication: active listening, clear communication, nonverbal awareness, persuasion, and self-awareness.
This practical framework can transform how professionals connect, influence, and collaborate.
With teams increasingly distributed and many interactions happening through screens, the margin for misunderstanding has never been greater.
Research shows that professionals spend nearly 80% of their day communicating, yet 55% of workers lose between 30 minutes and two hours of productive work a day due to ineffective communication. Ouch. (Sources: McKinsey Global Institute, International Data Corporation, Journal of Communication & Axios HQ).
“Clear communication is permission and responsibility,” Coach Teresa outlines. “I give you permission to question what you need, to question anything without clarity. I’m taking responsibility for communicating as effectively and clearly as I can with the resources and knowledge I have.”
Let’s explore the five essential skills that make this possible, all of which can be implemented immediately.
Active listening means fully engaging with another person’s message without interruption, judgment, or immediate response. It’s about approaching conversations with curiosity rather than assumption.
“You put yourself in a position that you’re actually listening to the entire thought process of the other person,” Muller notes. “You’re not waiting for an opportunity to speak back. If you have questions or comments, you’re keeping track of them, but you’re not concentrating just to be able to speak.”
This skill transforms relationships by creating psychological safety and deeper connection.
When people feel truly heard, trust naturally follows.
Yet common pitfalls are everywhere.
“We get excited. We want to share. We want to participate in the other person’s story,” Coach Teresa explains. “Especially people who are on the neurodivergent side. They tend to interrupt or add their own story. And it’s not because my story is better. It’s to go, I understand you. I hear you. I’m having an empathetic link with you.”
She continues, “Part of the challenge can also be fear we’ll forget our question or comment. And so then we’re concentrating on not forgetting that.”
To strengthen your listening muscles:
Get physically comfortable. “If you’re sitting there and you are uncomfortable, a lot of your concentration is on the fact that you’re not comfortable,” Muller advises.
Observe your interruption patterns. “Observe yourself for a while and see how you tend to disrupt someone else’s conversation. Find your own patterns because then you can already predict when you’ll have that urge,” suggests Muller.
Embrace curiosity. “If you’re not sitting in a kind of a space of curiosity, you are basically putting blinkers, like those horse blinkers, on your brain because you’re only accessing your old behavior, your old thoughts,” Muller explains.
Improve active listening, and you improve human connection. By silencing your inner narrator and embracing genuine curiosity, you transform every conversation from an exchange of words into a bridge of understanding.
Clear communication involves expressing ideas in ways that minimize ambiguity and maximize understanding. It can help take responsibility for how your message is received.
“Know specifically what it is you want to communicate,” Coach Teresa emphasizes. “Find the right opportunity and medium in which to say it. You ensure that there’s understanding in how you convey the message, and you allow opportunity for people to check their clarity.”
This matters tremendously in our information-saturated world. Unclear communication adds to cognitive load, erodes trust, and wastes valuable time and attention. As humans, it’s natural to change a message based on how you think it will be received or assume shared understanding without verification.
Muller identifies self-esteem and confidence as a common challenge.
“Working on assumptions on how we believe the receiver feels about us or the information. We’re so concerned with how the person will interpret what we’re saying if we don’t truly say what we need to say,” she continues. “That’s a massive barrier to clear communication.”
To improve clarity:
Know your core message. “Clear communication is taking responsibility for what I’m saying to you because you’ve given me the permission,” Muller suggests. “I’m trying to ensure what you hear is my intention. And that’s a big one there. That’s what you hear is what I intended you to hear.”
Give explicit permission for questions. “Take responsibility for what you are saying and give people permission to question you,” recommends Muller.
Use plain language without sacrificing meaning. “Sometimes the simplest language possible is the most effective because you’re not giving room for people to misinterpret.”
But that “take responsibility” idea – that’s the key.
This means taking responsibility and recognizing that others will base their thoughts and behaviors on the information you communicate. You’re responsible for ensuring that information is effectively related to allow genuine understanding.
By distilling complex ideas, inviting clarification, and choosing precision over complexity, you transform from simply delivering information to ensuring genuine understanding as a professional responsibility.
Nonverbal communication encompasses all unspoken cues—facial expressions, posture, gestures, tone—that influence how messages are interpreted.
Coach Teresa defines it as “subliminal messaging that comes through micro-expressions, emotional, and physiological reactions to the space. It’s not only micro-expressions, physical expressions, and hand gestures, but also things you are doing. It’s also what you’re wearing, your hair, and, if you’re online, your background. All of this is nonverbal communication.”
These cues establish authority, trust, and connection and often shape perceptions before words are even processed. They can reinforce your message or undermine it entirely, especially in virtual environments.
“People often react emotionally to the other person’s emotions being displayed,” Muller notes. “If I say something and you have a bit of a disgusted look very quickly, my brain’s going to pick it up before I even realize, and I’m going to emotionally react to it.”
Common challenges include cultural differences in interpretation, unconscious habits we no longer notice, and the tendency to oversimplify body language based on pop psychology.
Teresa points out some examples: “If someone’s standing there and the arms are crossed, maybe the arms are crossed because it’s comfortable. Simple as that. If someone’s fidgeting and looking away, oh, they’re not interested. No, maybe they just are thinking, and it’s helping them process to look somewhere else.”
To develop nonverbal intelligence:
Seek feedback on your patterns. “Know yourself, learn how to observe yourself, or ask others to give feedback on it so you can become more aware,” Muller advises.
Contextualize your behaviors. “If you do have some very particular mannerisms and you are aware of how people interpret them, explain them,” suggests Muller. “Contextualize your own behavior.”
Monitor your tone, especially when stressed. “If you realize your tone is coming across as harsh, explain, ‘Hey, sorry, I am a bit tense. So if my tone sounds off, it is not directed at you,” Muller recommends.
Persuasion is the ethical use of influence of balancing logic and emotion to create mutual benefit.
“It can portray things like respect, acknowledgment of authority,” Coach Teresa explains. “People when they view you, they already assume who you are. So we can use this non-verbal communication to challenge that or to reformat that person’s coding when it comes to you.”
This skill drives positive change and collaboration, especially for individual contributors who need to influence without formal authority.
Common pitfalls include lacking trust or credibility (essential foundations for influence), over-relying on either facts or emotions, and failing to truly listen to objections.
To build your persuasion skills:
Listen deeply to understand resistance. “Don’t make assumptions,” Muller advises. “Understand cultural nuances and don’t be afraid to ask others what is happening.”
Adapt your approach to different audiences. “There are cultural nuances,” Muller notes. “Where I’m from, effective communication is taking a moment and speaking, how are you? How’s the family? Even if it’s the first time you meet the person.”
Speak with confidence and congruence. “If I’m physically putting myself in a position that you feel like you’re under threat, that’s intimidation,” Muller explains. “Confidence comes from trusting that what we’re speaking about is congruent with all/both our benefits. I don’t need to intimidate them to get them to consider my position.”
By understanding resistance, tailoring your approach, and embodying authentic conviction, you’ll influence outcomes without authority, making your ideas not just heard but embraced and championed by others.
Self-awareness underpins all communication skills—it’s the ability to observe and reflect on your own communication patterns, emotional states, and cultural context.
“Over time, we stopped paying attention to our own behavior because we assume that what we are doing and saying and how we are behaving is true to our own intention,” Coach Teresa acknowledges. “The challenge there is that we stop paying attention to how we are actually entering and being in a space. So we need to pay more attention to ourselves.”
To develop communication self-awareness:
Schedule regular reflection. “Everything, there’s a cultural aspect to it,” suggests Muller. “There are cultural nuances to how effective communication happens. By reflecting, we see our own behaviour in context, not just assumed intention.”
Notice your emotional state before communicating. “Sometimes we don’t have the emotional energy or the patience. And our own frustration has been building up during the day, during the week. We cannot sit there and concentrate. Otherwise, we allow our emotional state to control how we interpret someone else and what we say,” Muller cautions.
Remember that context matters. “We can become overly cautious and obsessed with what we are doing with this non-verbal that we actually paralyze ourselves, and we cannot process information,” Muller reminds us. When we’re aware of context, we can relax a bit because we’re actively contextualizing for better interpretation.
These five skills—active listening, clear communication, nonverbal awareness, persuasion, and self-awareness—form an interconnected system. Improvements in one area naturally enhance the others, creating a positive communication flywheel.
While it can be hard work and a lot to think about, over time it will improve and become second nature.
“It’s okay to get it wrong. It’s a learning process. Sometimes what works today will not work tomorrow,” Muller emphasizes. “Don’t be afraid to go, ‘I’m so sorry for interrupting. I’m trying to learn how to actively listen.’ Please continue.”
You may even want to be a little more comprehensive and say something like, “Thank you for helping me clarify what I need to share. I am processing a lot of information right now as well.”
Start by assessing your current strengths.
Are you naturally skilled at listening but struggle with persuasion? Excellent at clarity but unaware of your nonverbal signals? Understanding your starting point helps you create a personalized approach to communication growth.
Remember that becoming a skilled communicator isn’t about perfection—it’s about connection. Each conversation is an opportunity to build understanding, trust, and positive outcomes.
As Muller puts it, “You’re not a mind reader. But I can take responsibility and go, “Wait, what am I picking up here? Are we still understanding each other, or do I need to answer/ask more questions to keep us connected?”
What one small communication practice will you improve today?
This article is based on insights from communication expert Teresa Muller as part of TaskHuman’s ongoing commitment to helping professionals develop essential skills that drive both well-being and performance in today’s workplace.