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Leaders - say what you mean and mean what you say

In his recent book, The Language of Leaders: How Top CEO’s Communicate to Inspire, Influence and achieve results, Kevin Murray identifies what business leaders look for when hiring other leaders, and interestingly what he found was very consistent across a range of leaders and businesses.

The first characteristic was around raw intellect and the ability to think clearly and strategically came first. The ability to choose the right people and align them to a cause was second and the ability to communicate with others and inspire them was third.

Other sought after characteristics included a focus on the future; a sense of mission; strong values; integrity and authenticity.

These findings are in line with the research undertaken by Kouzes and Posner detailed in their book the Leadership Challenge where they identified that the top 5 traits that followers respected in their leaders as being: honesty (and integrity), competent, forward looking, inspiring and intelligent.

Murray states that as a leader, ‘You have to be clear about the beliefs that underpin your strengths. Figure out your sense of purpose. Articulate all of the above. Only then can you talk from the heart’.

People who can talk ‘from the heart’ tend to communicate more convincingly because their spoken words are congruent with their body language. Speakers not trusted by listeners will not be effective communicators, no matter how polished their performance.