Effective executive communication engages all three dimensions of the leadership triangle - vision, task and relationship - in every encounter.

The Communication Audit lets you practice becoming more mindful of this. Select a day from your upcoming work-week during which you will be doing a lot of work with other people involving one on one meetings, team meetings, and presentations. Think about each activity, the audience, and what you want to communicate regarding vision, task, and relationship. Write down a couple of sentences about each expected encounter. During the day be aware of what and how you are communicating the three elements listed above. It might be helpful to have the printed sheet with your anticipated messaging strategies with you throughout the day, so you can take notes.

Take 15 minutes later in the day to look at your notes and think how you communicated throughout the day.

1. Were you able to “hit” all three targets throughout the day?

2. How was it challenging for you?

3. Which target – vision, task or relationship – was most difficult or did the difficulty change with the audience and message?

4. Thinking back on the day, did you miss opportunities to stress one of the types of messages?

5. As you were more aware of messaging vision, task, and relationship, did you notice others doing this as well? If so, what worked?

6. Did it make you feel differently about what was going on?

Consider one area you could improve and try to focus on that in the coming week.