You know that as a leader you’re being watched all the time. You are communicating verbally and nonverbally all day long, whether you’re aware of it or not!
As a great communicator you invest energy in deciding how you want to present yourself as the leader. What does your CEO role look like? How open do you want to be? Who gets to see the whole truth? When? Why?
When you choose to be transparent, do it deliberately. Sliding into a sensitive professional or personal disclosure without thinking it through in advance is disruptive, even to your most senior colleagues. This is part of the vital discipline of leadership. No matter how much you want or need to blab, you must take a pause and think it through before you speak. What will the burden of that information do to the person you’re sitting with? It’s a rare instance when your need to vent is more important than their need to stay positive and focused.
The same thing goes for presentations in larger settings. Before you decide to tell a personal story, prepare it and vet it. You want to be relatable and human, you don’t want to overshare and make people uncomfortable.
Finally, don’t scare the children. I still remember the faces of my young team members the first (and only) time they saw me cry. I had been the driven, jaded tough guy leader for more than eight years. Then one day in staff meeting, talking about a really positive example of customer service, I started to cry. I was surprised and flustered, but they were stunned and terrified. I stepped way outside of my persona without warning. It was a vivid real time example of the consequences of losing control.
It’s a lot easier to maintain your composure if you’re well-resourced. I know that being deeply jet-lagged, immersed in a really difficult problem at work and isolated was the cocktail that led me to break my leader role. If I had had one trusted advisor I could really talk to, it would have restored me so that I could present an appropriately positive demeanor to my team. Finding a safe, trusted advisor who doesn’t have skin in the game is essential so you have the strength and stamina to embrace your leader role every day. You’ve got to talk it out – just not to your team.
Your business must scale, and you must scale with it. You need to hire a great team, forge strong customer relationships and lead your market with a powerful point of view. You can do none of these things without exceptional communication skills. Click here to receive pragmatic communications advice in your inbox every month.
