Leading Through Language

9 USE THE LANGUAGE OF LEADERSHIP

Eva was a brilliant portfolio manager. Her boss showed me how the institutional fund she managed had outperformed its peers for over a decade. Yet Eva had a problem – when she would do shortlist presentations to pension fund board members who were considering investing with her, she failed to inspire – often losing out to competitors with less impressive investment returns.

I had Eva deliver her presentation to me. At first I didn't see many glaring mistakes. Eva was focused and precise in her thinking. She seldom wasted words and got straight to the point, and had a clear message and supporting argument. But as I listened to her go on about value investing and “intrinsic vs. market value,” I started to doze off. It wasn't that she was boring per se, it was just that she wasn't inspiring.

She wasn't speaking as a leader – because she wasn't using words that brought her inner passion and conviction to life.

Too many speakers fall into the trap that Eva did. They present clear, well-structured thinking but fail to engage and move their audiences. Often the reason is that they have not used the language of leadership to bring their ideas forward in a way that grabs people and connects with them on a deeper level than the intellectual one. Hence, our third step in the process of speaking as a leader is to use the language of leadership (see Figure 9.1).

Figure 9.1 Three Steps to Thinking Like a Leader.

As I conducted my interviews, one of the ...