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Word count: 879
Summary: The author asserts that presentations and speeches are
the least effective means of leadership communication. There is
a much more effective way: the Leadership Talk. In this three
part series, he describes underlying principles of the
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 the phone, you speak in
e-mails, you speak at lunch, beside the water cooler, and on
elevators, etc.
It's in the 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, the 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 the highest rung, the most effective way to communicate as a
leader, is through the 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 the 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 the 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 the
wrong results. Or they may be going after the right results in
the wrong ways.
If leaders don't act on the 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, the greatest sin is the
greatest treason, to get the right results for the 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 the primary results-generator
can lead to an organization being driven into the ground.
Achieving "more, faster, continually" means going beyond an
exclusive focus on cost-cutting and getting results by tapping
the heart of what the organization is all about.
And the heart of any organization is purpose and people: the
combination of its central purpose and the actions of the people
who manifest that purpose. Those people must be enlisted as
cause leaders. Cause leaders do more than accomplish their jobs;
they actually take leadership of those jobs and by doing so
bring a special motivation, vision, and initiative to the jobs.
Leadership is not position, it's performance. If you are a floor
sweeper, say, you best accomplish your work not simply by doing
floor sweeping but taking leadership of it: in other words,
approaching the job with the distinctive initiative, care, and
commitment that leadership entails.
These two essential premises beg the question, how do leaders
get more results, faster results on a continual basis?
The answer is simple: through the Leadership Talk.
The Leadership Talk is a powerful results-generator, maybe the
most powerful results-generator you'll ever use. It works
through your interacting with people so that they become
motivated to be your cause leader(s) in achieving more results
faster, continually.
Leadership Talks can be formal ways of communicating but mostly
they are informal. Unlike a speech, they are usually
interactive. They can be delivered anywhere: at a conference
table, over lunch, at a water cooler, across a desk. (One of the
best Leadership Talks I have witnessed was given by a plant
supervisor to one of his team members at a company picnic while
they sat on the back of a truck, sipping beers.) And in many
cases, an effective Leadership Talk can be given when roles are
reversed, when the audience speaks to the speaker.
Finally, though the methodologies I've developed for The
Leadership Talk are new, its roots go back into the mists of
history. Throughout history, when people needed to accomplish
great endeavors, one thing had to happen, a leader had to gather
them together and speak from the heart. That leader had to give
a Leadership Talk.
In the next two parts, I'll describe the essential elements of
the Leadership Talk, so you can start developing and delivering
them right away.
2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE
LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO
GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The
Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – and for more than 20 years has
been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious
results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get a free
white paper: "49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results," at
http://www.actionleadership.com. For more on the Leadership
Talk: http://www.theleadershiptalk.com
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