When People Listen to You, Do They Hear a Leader?

As someone on the way up, you are a leader whether you have a formal spot in the upper echelons of the organization or not. You can accelerate your climb up the organization ladder by consistently communicating as a thought-leader.

Your words brand you. As they march out of our mouth on the phone, in an elevator, in the hall, by the coffee machine, with your manager, or in a team meeting, are they branding you as a leader?

Every time you have the opportunity to verbalize your thoughts, your goal should be to influence decisions by making your point in a clear and concise manner. If you do, the people listening will hear the voice of a leader.

Kevin Carroll and Bob Elliott in their book, Make Your Point, tie your ability to communicate to your personal brand. They have a unique way of looking at you as a walking, talking product. They maintain your ideas are products that need packaging and advertising if you want your message to stick in the minds of your listeners.

To brand yourself as a leader others will listen to, use these tips from Carroll and Elliott: 

1.    Product Tips: Your words are your product. Choose them carefully to ensure they convey your verbal message accurately.
2.    Packaging Tips: Packaging involves the entire non-verbal message you deliver from the way you dress to the enthusiasm you portray. Dress appropriate and convince people to your viewpoint with confident body language, a convincing smile and bright eyes.
3.   Advertising Tips: Deliver your message using imagery, metaphors, anecdotes, props, and anything else that will concisely outline the benefits of your proposal. Make your presentation dance with delight before the prospective buyers of your ideas.
 
The last tip is to carefully plan your next opportunity to conduct a meeting, persuade to a course of action, or sell your idea for the next team building retreat.  People will listen to you and respect you as a leader.

To access my booklet on personal branding, join my community at www.karlabrandau.com and receive it as a complimentary download.

The True Leader Quiz: What would you do?

Read the situations below and think about what you would do then click on the link below to view my thoughts.

Situation #1– Bill rambled on at the retreat about how the New Year would be the best year yet for the company. But everyone zoned out about 10 minutes into Bill’s 30-minute speech and had no clue what they were to do to make the New Year a success.

Situation #2 – Aaron started the meeting on the new product launch with these words between coughs: “I’m not feeling very well today and didn’t get the agenda out, but we’ll still meet for the entire allotted time.” Fifteen minutes later attendees were impatient as the discussion rambled from point to point.

Situation #3 – Allison laughed and with a dismissive air said: “That is a really silly idea. It would never work. There isn’t one point you made that I like.”

Click here to view my recommendations. Do they match your thoughts?


TWO New Programs To Help You Be More Influential:
Presentation Skills and Think While Standing On Your Own Two Feet

Presentations That Stick provides much more than valuable information on presentation skills, – it actually helps you organize and practice your next public presentation whether that is to your team, your division, or an outside group. This course examines various methods of delivering a speech and how to craft a WOW opening with a thunderous applause closing. Between the opening and closing of your speech, you’ll learn how to make scientific facts come alive, how to link between sections, and how to use stories and anecdotes to keep your audience engaged.

For real results, bring the topic of your next speech or bring a speech that is already written. We’ll help you tweak, twist, and catapult this presentation to your best work yet. Computers with PowerPoint are definitely allowed in class since this is a working, hands on approach to learning. Leave shyness or bashfulness at your desk. Nervousness is allowed! We have techniques to turn nervousness into energy! You will learn how to:

•    Make your point verbally
•    Make your point visually
•    Use PowerPoint appropriately 
•    Create Aha moments in your audience
•    Overcome stage fright

One last requirement: be prepared to be present and be recorded … our goal is improvement! Everyone who presents can always make their presentation better, even if it just refining the words in their best story.

This is a 2-day class.


Think While Standing on Your Own Two Feet is a practical, tactical hands-on-class to help you replace “ahhhs and ummms” with lucid and logical comments. The content helps you speak clearly and concisely anyplace and anytime. With this instruction, you’ll know how to quickly organize your thoughts in order to make your point and answer questions, even under pressure.

The program is designed to help you calm your inner qualms and appear relaxed and confident as you interface with others in pressure cooker situations. Along with teaching you how to identify your main premise with supporting rationalizations, you’ll learn to deliver your opinions with clarity and confidence.

We’ll teach you how to buy time, how to ask questions, and how to refocus and redirect the conversation. We’ll even have a little fun with improve techniques and teach you how to use humor to get out of a sticky situation. You will learn how to:

•    Answer impressively, even if you don’t know the EXACT answer
•    Polish your delivery so you can tackle tough questions head on
•    Say I don’t know and still keep your integrity intact
•    Establish rapport, even with difficult people

With this training, you’ll never be caught off guard in a meeting or have thought of the perfect response – after the conversation – again! You’ll know how to think on your feet so you don’t fall on your face.

New Blog Entry: Eliminate the "Bully" Manager Label

Bully BossGet pithy comments on leadership topics by visiting Karla's blog: From the Desk of Karla Brandau. The latest entry is on a proposed law in New York permitting employees to sue bully bosses. You won't want to miss reading it. While you are there, sign up to have Karla's blog delivered right to your inbox. Don't forget to leave a comment.