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Summary: The author asserts that presentations and speeches are least effective means of leadership communication. There is a much more effective way: Leadership Talk. In this three part series, he describes underlying principles of Leadership Talk and ways to help develop and deliver it.

Turbo Charge Your Career With The Most Powerful Leadership Tool Of All: The Leadership Talk (Part One) By Brent Filson

Leaders speak 15 to 20 times daily. You speak at meetings, you speak across their desks, you speak on phone, you speak in e-mails, you speak at lunch, beside water cooler, and on elevators, etc.

It's in interaction of those speaking encounters, multiplied daily, month in and month out, year in and year out, that you become a successful leader or not.

If those encounters are defined by Leadership Talks instead of presentations/speeches, effectiveness of your leadership will be dramatically increased, not only in your job but in your career.

Here's why: There's a ladder of verbal persuasion. The lowest rungs (least effective)of which are presentations and speeches. Primarily, they communicate information.

But highest rung, most effective way to communicate as a leader, is through Leadership Talk.

The Leadership Talk not only communicates information. It does something much more. It has you establish a deep, human, emotional connection with people – so important in motivating them to achieve results.

Once you understand Leadership Talk, you'll find it's indispensable to your leadership. You'll never go back to giving presentations/speeches again.

I'm going to show you what it is and a few tips on using it. But first, let's understand this important point: If leaders don't measure up, it's often because they act under wrong premises. Here are two golden leadership premises that drive The Leadership Talk.

Premise one. Leadership is about one thing only, getting results, however you define and measure them. If you're not getting results, you're not a leader, or you won't be a leader for long. Leadership is not a measure of results; results are a measure of leadership.

That seems simple enough; but many leaders either ignore or misunderstand this premise. They may not know that getting results is their raison d'etre. Or they may be focusing on wrong results. Or they may be going after right results in wrong ways.

If leaders don't act on above premise, they'll go wrong in countless ways.

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Summary: Leaders often hamper their effectiveness by focusing on solving problems that eventually turn out to be wrong problems. Here is a tool to help you focus on right problems and solve them in right ways.

The 20/60/20 Rule Of Leadership. Don't Go Solving The Wrong Problems By Brent Filson

Several decades ago, a passenger jet approached a Florida airport with pilot and co-pilot struggling to fix what they thought was a malfunctioning landing gear. The landing-gear light was on, signaling that gear was deployed; but both men did not hear it actually deploy.

As men sought to understand whether they had a defective landing-gear light or a defective landing gear -- co-pilot actually taking up a hatch and getting down into wheel well -- aircraft kept losing altitude. Too late, a warning alarm sounded and plane crash, killing all aboard.

Quite possibly that tragedy has subsequently saved many lives. For pilot and co-pilot's actions have been used in flight simulation training programs to demonstrate how NOT to troubleshoot problems in cockpit.

The incident has become known as Landing-gear Fix, a diligent attempt to solve wrong problem. Of course, they had a landing-gear problem on their hands. But unbeknownst to them, they faced a far more serious problem, a pending crash.

The Landing-gear Fix is a leadership lesson. In quest to get results, many leaders often focus on Landing-gear Fixes -- putting their time, resources and talents into solving wrong problems. In fact, it's been my experience working with thousands of leaders during past 20 years that most leaders are either working on wrong problems or working on right problems in wrong ways.

In this issue, I'll give you a tool to avoid getting involved in a leadership Landing-gear Fix. It's a tool that will help you avoid wrong problems and focus on right ones. It's called 20/60/20 rule. And it will save you aggravation and help you avoid wasting time.