Assumptions as a Hindrance to Effective Communication

The ability to communicate effectively and clearly is an important leadership quality.
When leading a team, good communication skills help a leader to be understood and to also
understand team members better. Apart from building respect and trust, effective
communication creates an environment that supports productivity, quality work, and a happy
team. Despite the importance of effective communication in leadership, my workplace
experiences have shown that not all leaders are effective communicators. One of the most
common causes of miscommunication that I have encountered at the workplace involves
team leaders making assumptions about what team members know or feel when
communicating.
Our team leader’s habit of constantly making assumptions about what we knew or
what was expected of us often made accomplishing team tasks hard. In one case, our manager
assigned us a project that we were supposed to finish within two weeks. Most of the team
members, except the leader and two members, had little experience working on such a
project. Our assumption was that the team leader would first teach us about various aspects of
the project before assigning roles. The team leader, on the other hand, assumed that we all
knew what we were supposed to do. In our first project meeting, the team leader provided a
short overview of each role and then assigned each of us roles in the project. Out of fear of
embarrassment, we all accepted our roles without speaking out about our lack of adequate
knowledge and skills that were required to perform the tasks of the roles that we were given.
Within a few days, it was clear that the project was not progressing well. Another
meeting was called. In our deliberations, it was clear that there had been miscommunication.
Assuming that we all knew what we were supposed to do, the team leader had not given
detailed instructions on each of our roles. As for us, fear of embarrassment had prevented us

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from seeking clarifications and clearly communicating areas that we were not familiar with.
To address the problem, I suggested that every communication be done both orally and in
written form. Another suggestion that I made was for the team leader to always invite
questions or calls for clarifications any time he is making a presentation. Such measures
reduce the possibility of assumptions limiting the effectiveness of communication.