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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.
Premise two: The best leaders get more results, get them faster, and get "more, faster" continually.
This too may seem like an obvious point, but it is a point many leaders miss as well. In leadership, greatest sin is greatest treason, to get right results for wrong reasons.
For example, many leaders think that they can cost-cut their way to achieving a robust organization. Don't get me wrong: Cost-management should be an on-going effort in any organization, but to rely on it as primary results-generator can lead to an organization being driven into ground. Achieving "more, faster, continually" means going beyond an exclusive focus on cost-cutting and getting results by tapping heart of what organization is all about.
