Here's a dirty little secret that falls under the heading of communication skills: Flattery actually does work. It is effective. Saying nice things to people is a really good way to build relationships (it's not the only way, but it is a helpful tool). Great sales people know this. 
The majority of organizations like to consider themselves at least somewhat collaborative (most CEOs don’t raise their hands when you ask them if they want to create a cutthroat or dictatorial organization). Because of this, when we ask leaders how they like to make decisions, a large portion say they like to reach consensus.
Let's say you just got promoted to manager and one of your former co-workers, former colleagues, is pretty ticked off because you got the promotion and they didn't. How do you deal with this? It takes developing some interpersonal skills.
Getting criticized stinks. I'm not going to sugarcoat that. But there is a technique you can use to receive constructive criticism that makes it a little more bearable, and even constructive.
It’s not always easy being the technological expert on the team. You’re valued for your knowledge and skills, but those same two factors can make you appear superior, sarcastic or uncaring to others who are less technology savvy. 
Here’s a different kind of communication skills tip: If you give enough presentations, eventually you will have one not go well. You will have one go off the rails. Now, when most people do this, they have this feeling that I just have to power through no matter how bad this is, no matter how much sweat is pouring down my back, and how irritated and annoyed the audience is.
Given the huge amounts of information most of us have to cram into our presentations, getting people to remember everything is a tall order.
Now, we all have different presentation styles and different ways of making our message memorable.
When I go into organizations and I ask the employees “tell me why your team exists?” the most frequent response I hear is “I don’t really know.” This certainly isn’t great news, but it does help clarify one of my recent research findings that only 23% of employees say their leader always communicates their vision clearly. 
Here's a frightening statistic: Only 14% of employees think that performance appraisals are useful! And high performers are especially unhappy with their reviews.
Why? Because most managers don't offer even a simple 'thank you' to their high performers. And if they do say 'thank you' it's usually vague nonsense like 'nice job' or something equally non-specific.
To be a great leader, you can’t fear being seen as the bad guy/gal. And I’m not just talking about obvious ‘bad guy/gal’ situations like telling someone “you’re fired” or “you’re not getting a raise this year and here’s why.” I’m also talking about simple situations like telling someone “I need you to change the way you submit that form.”
