In your professional experiences, you may have experienced managers that were not great at communicating with you as employees.

In your professional experiences, you may have experienced managers that were not great at communicating with you as employees. For one reason or another, the manager was unable to effectively communicate with his or her employees. A large part of communication is not what the manager says, but his or her nonverbal communication and listening skills.

First, provide summary details about a situation in which you had a manager or other leader who was not good at nonverbal communication or was not an active listener. What was the conversation about? Explain the details that led up to the conversation and the main topic of the conversation.

Then, select one of the following bullet points:

• Why do you feel the leader or manager was not actively listening? What did the leader or manager do in regard to nonverbal communication to show you that he or she was not actively listening or was not effectively communicating with you? How did you react to the situation? Support your response with research.
• What could the manager do in order to improve his or her active listening skills and body language in conversations such as you discussed? What would you have done differently if you were the manager? Support your response with research.