The one-sentence summary

Inspiring communication can make the difference between poor performance and exceptional results, and the top CEOs have 12 principles to achieve this.

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WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

  • Inspiring communication can make the difference between poor performance and exceptional results.
  • Extensive interviews with business leaders allow the author to draw up 12 principles of leadership communication:
    1. Be yourself, better
    2. Articulate, share and live a compelling mission and powerful values
    3. Create a clear and vivid view of the future, and tell everybody
    4. Bring the outside in – build relationships and trust
    5. Engage and align people through conversations
    6. Embrace audience centricity – it’s all about them
    7. Listen hard to inspire – be interested, respectful and patient
    8. Stand up to stand out – you need a point of view
    9. Use stories and anecdotes to motivate people
    10. Don’t send out signals that undermine your words
    11. Prepare properly for public platforms – your reputation is at stake
    12. Learn, rehearse, review, improve – always try to get better
  • In other words, it’s the language of leaders that can often be the difference.

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

  • If you want to be a good leader, or are advising one, the principles here can be followed methodically in the style of a textbook.
  • Senior leaders were asked to name their most important piece of advice, and the top five were:
    • Look to yourself in order to become a great communicator
    • You have to communicate your vision, values and mission effectively
    • Concentrating on your audience is critical – listening and saying the right things
    • Be visible, and engage constantly
    • Never give up trying to improve your communication
  • There are lots of wide-ranging anecdotes, and plenty of wisdom from people who have been there and done it.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

  • It’s the old problem. You could probably follow all the advice here and not necessarily be a ‘great’ leader. Many would argue that truly great leaders have a special something that no technique can teach. No harm in trying though.