Being an effective manager requires strong communication skills, including writing.

You’ve probably already drawn up your list of resolutions and goals for 2022. Let me add one more: 'improving your writing skills.' Yes, that may sound like one of those evergreen goals. But it’s particularly relevant for leadership right now. After all, most communications from leaders, whether they are company-wide emails, memos, or tweets, start out in the written form.

Getting them right helps build a strong culture—a bigger challenge now that some form of hybrid work is going to be with us for a long time.

And though there tends to be a lot of focus these days on the sort of presentation and spoken communication skills that are used in video calls, sometimes the more old-school form of communication, writing, gets overlooked. For everything from the “about us” page of your website to the emails you send to employees and your communications with customers and clients, writing plays a large part in setting the tone of your culture and your brand. According to the oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffet: “The one easy way to become worth 50 percent more than you are now — at least — is to hone your communication skills — both written and verbal,” Personally, I make an effort to read, assimilate and then share in written form as much as I possibly can - not to brag about knowing stuff or to want likes or recognition but to develop the habit consciously - once you get on to it, you see that it's not that difficult to keep going on. Yes, some days can be tough and you get that writer's block but you gotta persevere and keep going - consistency beats anything. Plus, it's kind of cathartic if you keep getting things out of your head onto paper - there is so much information to process in this hyper-social world and unless you systematically bring it out, you'll end up burning out - been there and it's not a pretty place to be in. So, don't wait for your thoughts to kill you - just start