How to Speak Like a Leader

Leaders speak differently than the average individual contributor.
We're going to look at four ways that leaders talk differently.
I'm Alex Lyon and I'm here to provide communication tips to help you increase
your impact and lead your teams with more excellence.
Today were talking about how leaders communicate. We're going to talk about
four ways that leaders speak differently than the average employee or average
member of an organization.
The first way is that leaders are really concise. They figure out what they want
to say and they say in about one or two sentences.
The advantage to this is that first of all it sounds really confident. When
you're able to express yourself really clearly like that it sounds like wow
they really know what they think.
The second advantage is that when they say something concrete,
it's much more likely to land and people are able to understand it and then react
to it, hopefully positively. But at least they're given something concrete that
they can hear and then respond to.
So you want to make sure your concise. The second thing is that leaders are
able to speak outside of their own area of expertise. And they're able to
articulate the value of other areas of expertise.
For example, let's say they come out of an IT background that's how they rose up.
They're able to look at operations, at accounting, at marketing, at engineering
and so forth and they're able to say exactly what those other areas
contribute. And that's a really powerful thing. A lot of times we get pegged as
individual contributors and we get pegged as close minded because we start
making fun of even other areas, labeling, coming up with weird nicknames.
it's like a little internal competition or turf war that different departments
developed with others. But leaders don't tend to do that. They're able to actually,
first of all, notice and learn about the other areas, and then even speak about
the good value that those other areas contribute. And they are valuable. If they
weren't valuable, they wouldn't be part of the organization.
The third thing that leaders do differently when they speak is that they
are able to speak a level above departments. So they talk about the
coordination between
among departments. They talk about strategy and how those different
departments are moving in the same direction toward the same goals.
I'll use a metaphor of a a band a rock band. A little personal disclosure, I used
to be in rock bands in high school and college. So I almost always want to go
there with my analogies.
Oftentimes when you're recording in the studio, you have a drummer. And that
drummer wants the drums to be the loudest. And the guitar player wants the guitar to
be the loudest. And the bass player wants the bass to bass to be the loudest.
That's just natural because that's their area of expertise.
so what groups do is they bring in a producer who is there to help craft the
overall song. Because the producer is going to listen to that song
the way someone else might listen to it. Not the way a guitar player would listen to it
or a drummer, but how the average person who's listening to music will
bring that in. And that's what leaders do. They step above those individual
departments they're talking about the overall coordination of those different
efforts. And the fourth way is that leaders are able to connect just about
every single project or task that's being done to the overall business, to
the overall enterprise, to the goals that that organization is trying to reach. So
it doesn't matter what it is, they see how it moves the ball forward in a more
general sense and they're able to spell that out for you. And they don't always
do it,
in fact, they almost never do it by connecting it to some cheesy overworked
vision statement.
They're going to talk about that task in relation to the real concrete goals that
everybody hopefully understands. They're going to put it in plain language. If you
are able to talk about the business not just your area
now you're sounding like a leader. And by the way when I say the phrase business,
"talk about the business,"
I'm not talking about just for-profit organizations. If you're in a non-profit
or health care,
you're talking about the overall goals of the organization,
the things that everybody is pushing toward in general. How your organization
is positioned in
the market against others and so forth. So those are the four ways that leaders
speak differently than individual contributors. I hope that you see
it's not just a way of talking but there is a mindset underneath that way of
talking that helps them speak that way. So it's a way of thinking in a way of
communicating.
It's one of the reasons by the way I created Communication Coach
I call people like you, people who are watching, Rising Leaders.
Maybe your team leader, front-line supervisor, front-line manager and you're
trying to increase your communication skills so that you can lead your teams
with more excellence. That's why the channel is here. So maybe you have
thought of or have heard over the years different ways you've noticed that
leaders communicate and how they come across and it in their own way that's
that distinguishes them from the average person. I encourage you if that's the
case, put your own comments and questions and thoughts below, your own
opinions on the four that I listed here as well. If you're interested in ongoing
content in this kind of topic, then I encourage you if you haven't yet to
subscribe to the channel,
give the video a like, and start tuning in. Thanks God bless and I hope you get
use these tips
you're very next opportunity.