The passage of the American Sign Language Act led to the increased popularity of sign language, now one of the five most widely used languages in the United States. Learning sign language can give you a glimpse into the culture and life of the Deaf communities. As a leader, it’s essential to make an effort to learn sign language, as it can help you become more inspiring and impactful in your communication, ultimately enabling you to influence those around you easily.
Below are more reasons why you should learn sign language to be an effective leader:
Connect With Different People
Sign language provides an avenue for engaging in productive and meaningful conversations with the community of individuals who are hard of hearing—these individuals currently number over a million in the United States. Therefore, learning the language opens up a window of opportunity for you to meet and connect with a new breed of friends.
Embracing and identifying with different groups is an element that a good leader should possess. Leadership requires one to be receptive and accommodating to different people, regardless of race, colour, or religion. When you can engage with people from diverse groups, you gain new perspectives and insights that foster personal growth, preparing you to be a better leader.
Since sign language is full-bodied communication, it enables you to enhance your relationships, whether at work, in the community, or in the family.
Ability To Create Visual Stories
Most leaders tend to employ techniques that create visual stories to influence the people they are leading into action. Learning a new language, or even sign language, enhances your visual skills since it’s more of a visual language.
Developing visual stories requires critical thinking prowess that’s applied to storytelling or when relaying information in other languages. Such stories often accompany orations, which is a leadership attribute demonstrated by renowned leaders, such as Barack Obama of the US, in gaining the allegiance of the masses.
Self-Awareness
Sign language is firmly inculcated in the culture of the deaf community. So, studying sign language promotes sensitivity to the deaf community.
A leader should also be someone who’s not detached from the needs of the people they’re serving. That’s why learning sign language can promote your self-awareness and make you a more effective leader.
Makes You More Adaptable To Changes
Learning sign language opens up a new world of diverse communities and cultures. But, more importantly, it helps you adapt to a new way of life that might have previously been just a dream.
Leadership dynamics require you to be someone who can quickly adapt and embrace new perspectives, issues, and challenges. Learning sign language is one of the surefire ways for a leader to give their best to those who have entrusted them with the leadership role.
Promotes Cognitive Functioning
A bilingual individual increases their cognitive functions. Sign language also provides you with different alternatives for expressing things differently, which changes your general perspective on communication.
As a leader who knows sign language, you pay better attention to details. Additionally, you develop superior task-switching skills, which are valuable in leadership. Importantly, bilingual individuals tend to perform better on tasks that require conflict management, a skill often lacking in leadership positions.
Moreover, knowing the American Sign Language (ASL) makes you a professional at jobs that require inhibition and control. This means that with a developed cognitive system, you’re able to ignore any competing perceptual information. Thus, being able to focus only on the most relevant aspects.
Promotes Persuasive Skills
Akin to a salesperson, learning sign language enables you to absorb information and explain it comprehensively to people without any prior knowledge of the subject.
For instance, one thing a sign language interpreter must do is identify which signs to use, as well as understand how to sequence the information logically in a way that the intended audience can easily understand.
As a leader, being able to present complex issues clearly can help you resonate well with your employees at work or within your family.
Conclusion
It’s essential, therefore, to learn sign language to be an effective leader for the following reasons. It promotes self-awareness and fosters connections with diverse individuals. It enables you to create visual stories; as a leader, you become more adaptable. Additionally, it improves your cognitive skills and also makes you more persuasive.
