The Leader's Guide to Speaking with Presence: How to Project Confidence, Conviction, and Authority - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

JOHN BALDONI, president of Baldoni Consulting LLC, is an internationally recognized executive coach, speaker, and author. In 2011, Leadership Gurus International ranked John No. 11 on its list of the world's top 30 leadership experts. He is a regular online contributor to CBS MoneyWatch, Inc, and Harvard Business Review.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

With their warmth, confidence, and ability to connect, many leaders look like they were born to the role. But that’s rare. What seem to be innate gifts are usually the result of learning and practicing great communication.

Communication is a critical skill for leaders. Whether in a contentious meeting, a casual conversation, or a formal speech, the ability to craft and deliver clear, authentic messages, ones your audience will believe, is the tipping point between forgettable and transformational.

The Leader’s Guide to Speaking with Presence will turn even dull speakers into dazzling communicators. Stripped of excess complexity and verbiage, the book distills the truly essential components of extraordinary communication into 100 actionable tips, including:

• Why framing your speech as a musical composition captures hearts and minds

• How to avoid common blunders, such as hunching at the podium or furtively glancing sideways

• PowerPoint dos and don’ts to enhance a message, not distract from it

• Why leaders who tell compelling stories will turn listeners into followers

• How to be a credible optimist, without being a Pollyanna

• Three steps to ensure you get out of your office and mingle with employees

• How to project certitude and a clear path for others to follow—plus much more

A leader’s most important job is to communicate. This handy guide helps you achieve the kind of genuine presence and communication excellence that earn lasting trust and quantifiable influence.

John Baldoni is an internationally recognized executive coach, speaker, and author of a dozen leadership books. In 2013, Global Gurus International ranked John No. 14 on its list of the world’s top 30 leadership experts. John has written over 400 columns for the online sites of Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Forbes, and Inc.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

INTRODUCTION TO AUTHENTIC COMMUNICATION

What do people want most from leaders?

The real deal!

This is especially true when leaders open their mouths to speak. How they say it may be as important as what they say. Whether the person speaking is your boss or our president, we want to know that he or she knows we are listening and respects us for doing so.

Another word for this is authenticity.

We want people in charge to be honest and we want their words to ring with integrity. Never is this truer than when the leader is making a formal presentation or delivering a speech.

The words are crafted but the delivery must be authentic. It must reflect the honesty of the speaker, or something I like to call “leadership presence.”

Leadership presence is the reflection of the leader’s inner self. It should be the real deal. Presence, however, is not simply a sense of being; it is a determination of action. Leadership presence, as I wrote in 12 Steps to Power Presence, is a form of “earned authority.” Authority comes from the title of a leader, but it is earned by example.

A leader’s job is to bring people together for a common purpose, so credibility is critical. That will only come when people trust their leader and want to follow his or her lead. Communication opens the door to understanding what the leader is and what he or she stands for.

The Leader’s Guide to Speaking with Presence focuses on delivering the authentic message and doing it as a leader full of presence. There are chapters on crafting the presentation as well as on delivering it. I have also included information on using PowerPoint as a tool for enabling more authentic communications.

The Leader’s Guide to Speaking with Presence is a result of lessons I have taught in my coaching practice, as well as tips I have learned from watching good speakers deliver. The handbook contains more than a hundred tips on what to do when speaking aloud, not simply from a stage or a podium but also when connecting one-on-one or in small groups.

Communication opens the door to authenticity. A leader’s presence affirms that what the leader says is an indication of what he or she believes. And when we sense that the leader means well, we will lend the leader our ears and will be inclined to follow his or her leadership.