Think about some of the most successful leaders you’ve known—perhaps a boss, a teacher, a Club President, or a committee chair. Chances are they share some common traits. As you develop your leadership skills, it’s helpful to reflect on leaders whom you have most respected, and try to verbalize what made them so impactful.

During my many years working as a consultant for business communications, I’ve found three characteristics that nearly all strong leaders share: a sense of integrity, the ability to respond to feedback, and strong communication skills.

Integrity

Successful leaders show integrity in all their actions, meaning they behave consistently with their values and take responsibility when things go wrong. This kind of integrity leads naturally to authenticity, which makes people feel that when the leader speaks, they reflect their true thoughts and values within the boundaries of professional presentation. Having integrity shows up in other behaviors too, such as being on time for meetings and not interrupting others.

Ability to Receive Feedback

Effective leaders welcome input from other people in the organization. They show a willingness to receive feedback by asking open-ended questions such as, “How do you feel about what I’m saying?” or “Can you tell me more about that?” and using inclusive language that incorporates “we” and “I.” If there’s a disagreement, they don’t get upset or dismiss the person’s observations. A good leader will pause and try to assess what their team members are trying to convey, perhaps by saying, “Let me be sure I understand you. What I think you said is ‘XYZ.’ Is that right?” or “Can you help me understand that better?”

Strong Communication Skills

Perhaps the most crucial trait of a good leader is that they are able to get people to listen when they speak. Strong communicators use clear language to ensure everyone understands the message, and they avoid trite buzzwords and jargon.

Ivan Rosenberg, Ph.D., who has trained over 4,500 leaders in his leadership development workshops, says, “A leader creates the possibility of a future that wasn’t going to happen and enrolls others into taking action to fulfill that future.” In other words, strong leaders create a concept of a future outcome and draw people toward it through their example and their language. It isn’t just the verbal part of communication that makes a difference, the nonverbal part is just as important. Rosenberg emphasizes that leaders’ behavior sets the tone for the whole organization. If leaders make excuses when they make mistakes, they create a company of cover-ups. If they are always late, others assume it’s okay to be late, too.

Verbal Behavior of a Leader: What Do You Say?

As you develop your leadership skills, the most impactful tool you can use is your words. Your words matter, and that includes not only what you say but how you say it.

If you’re trying to connect with a new team, ask questions or play appropriate games to figure out what the interests and strengths of your team members are. Try ice breaker activities to learn more about people’s experience and ways of communicating. Another effective strategy is to use storytelling to bring people together. This is particularly useful if you have stories that align with the goal of the team or can describe a challenging situation that ultimately led to a successful outcome.

Successful leaders behave consistently with their values and take responsibility when things go wrong.

Jargon and buzzwords, such as “low-hanging fruit” and “thinking outside the box,” can lead to confusion or a sense of not belonging for people who don’t know the terms. You will win more confidence using clear and straightforward language than spouting the latest business jargon. The same rule applies to acronyms: Be sure to identify them the first time you use them. For example, don’t describe the program year and refer to the “DCP.” Explain the Distinguished Club Program so new members can understand it, then introduce the acronym.

How you say your words can be just as important as what you say. When you are addressing a group—even during a simple get-to-know-you session—speak clearly and audibly, pronounce your words clearly. If you are in a diverse group, avoid using local dialects that may not translate to your entire team.

Vocal tone is key. To project a sense of leadership, your tone should be strong. A hesitant tone implies uncertainty or lack of confidence. End declarative sentences by pitching your voice downward at the end of each sentence. Treating statements as if they were questions leads to a damaging speaking habit called “upspeak.” People practicing upspeak seem to be asking for the listener’s approval with every sentence. For many listeners, this habit is distracting, even annoying. Drop the last syllable; do not inflect upward.

Your vocal tone says volumes about your feelings. Imagine all the ways that a person could answer “fine” to the question of how they are feeling. Someone might brightly say, “Fine!” and you’ll know they’re having a good day. Another might say “Fine” curtly and you instantly know that they are not fine at all. If you struggle with people misconstruing your words, try listening to recordings of yourself speaking or asking for feedback from your Toastmasters network.

Physical Presence: Looking the Part

Verbal communication is only one aspect of the language of leadership. When you stand in front of people, your audience or team is making snap judgments about your competence, professionalism, and credibility before you even open your mouth. These judgments happen instantaneously, usually at a subconscious level. Your posture, clothing, facial expression, gestures, and other factors must present a consistent sense of leadership.

A leader’s physical presentation should be consistent with the culture and values of their organization; for example, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, is well known for wearing hoodies to major meetings. However, those hoodies are of excellent quality, clean, and fit him well. When he was called to testify before U.S. Congress, Zuckerberg donned a suit—demonstrating that he knows how to dress appropriately for his environment and is able to adapt as a leader.

Your physical appearance can be empowering or disempowering. To project an image of power, stand up straight, but don’t be rigid. Keep your hands open at your sides unless you are gesturing naturally. Be sure to smile at your audience—sometimes it helps to choose a friendly face in the audience and smile at them. Make your smile genuine, however; plastering a grin on your face will make everyone wonder what you’re hiding. That said, you need to understand the situation and circumstances in which you’re speaking. If you’re addressing something serious, such as a bereavement, disaster, or impending layoffs, a smile would be inappropriate. The secret is to read the room and respond authentically.

Movement is another powerful tool for leaders. Move intentionally. If you stride across the stage, do so in order to speak to both sides of the room—not because you’re feeling antsy. As you move, keep your hands loose at your sides.

Eye contact is another key for connecting with people. In large groups, scan the room and focus on just a few individuals. Then, scan again, noting whether people are still paying attention or have started surreptitiously staring at their phones. If you feel you are losing the audience, change your physical position—stand up if you are sitting down or vice versa. Take a quick poll. Ask a question. Jolt them out of their apathy. In smaller groups, look at individuals with a friendly expression, smiling authentically when the occasion suits.

To retain a strong presence, avoid fidgeting, keeping a stiff posture or facial expression, or playing with your hair, jewelry, or clothing. If you ask others to share their thoughts but then stand with your arms crossed and a stern expression, your listeners are likely to clam up. Whenever your body language contradicts your words, people will believe your body language.

If you feel that maintaining a straight, open posture is uncomfortable—and many beginning speakers feel this way—try practicing in front of a mirror or at your Toastmasters club. Most people are not born knowing how to present themselves professionally. It’s a learned skill, and Toastmasters is an ideal place to practice and master various techniques.

Dealing With Sensitive Issues

If you’re wondering how best to speak to team members under challenging circumstances, remember three words: professional, friendly, and respectful. If you include those three factors in your communication, you won’t go wrong. For example, suppose a team member is upset that they did not receive an expected promotion. You can listen actively and empathetically, showing you comprehend their frustration. Encourage open dialogue, letting the person express their feelings and thoughts. Respect their sentiments.

You can then calmly explain some factors that went into management’s decision without disclosing confidential information. Then, you can respectfully offer to work with the person to create a career development plan that might lead to future promotions.

This approach—listening, reflecting the other person’s message, explaining the situation, and looking toward the future—will help you deal with a wide range of potentially distressing issues.

Developing the language of leadership requires self-awareness. Be mindful of your strengths and weaknesses. Work to improve yourself. As the Toastmasters year gets off to a start, integrate this knowledge into every speech, meeting role, and club officer interaction. By consistently maintaining the personal, physical, and verbal qualities of a leader, you will discover that the language of leadership becomes natural—because you are becoming a leader.

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Critical thinking is the ability to analyze events, information, and arguments, look at the information from different sides and form rational conclusions. It forces us to separate facts from opinions and thoughts from emotions.

But how do we become better critical thinkers? Let’s explore a few steps you can take to sharpen your skills.

Identify the Key Issue

A business executive once asked me if I could train his team. I asked if they needed help with their writing skills, and he replied, “They know how to write – the problem is that they don’t know what to write about.” No matter how well-worded their responses to customers might have been, they were not good because they didn’t address the key issues.

For example, the executive told me he’d asked a staff member to respond to a customer complaint. The customer was okay with the company’s high price – they were more concerned with whether they could get a particular service. The staff person wrote to the customer offering to cut the price without mentioning the service issue. Naturally, neither the executive nor the customer was satisfied.

Divining the real issue requires experience, common sense, and curiosity. Managers might need to work closely with team members to train them to see what matters and discard what’s irrelevant.

Learn How to Ask Questions

The best way to gain clarity is by asking questions—because it forces us out of our comfort zones and encourages us to think deeply about a problem or issue. Be curious and allow yourself to ask “out of the box” questions.

For example, when considering a strategic move, start by thinking about what questions you need to ask, such as:

• What is the reason to adopt this move? What would be the reasons not to adopt it?
• “What challenges will likely arise in procuring the resources we need to achieve this?”
• “What if we try this and it doesn’t work? Could we recover?”

By asking probing questions, you might uncover crucial factors that were not apparent at first glance.

Evaluate Inputs

We are bombarded with information daily. Some is true, some is slanted, and some is pure garbage. Yet it all looks so tidy on the Internet or the page. How do we determine which “facts” are true? Ask probing questions about where the assertions come from. What is the source of information? If a secondary source is cited, try to go back to the primary source or article and ensure that you are not receiving a biased interpretation. Follow your parents’ advice: Don’t believe everything you read and hear.

Understand Your Biases

To think critically, you must understand your own biases to spot them when they come up in conversations or decision-making processes. It’s hard to see our biases because they are like the water we swim in. If you find yourself thinking, “That won’t work,” before a person has finished speaking, assume that you’ve hit on a bias. Also, develop self-awareness to notice when you might be tempted to discount the contributions of some individuals.

Take a Step Back

Critical thinking requires reflection and effort – making snap judgments is rarely a sign that one is thinking critically. I know the pressure is always on, but the costs of making the wrong decision or jumping to an erroneous conclusion can be enormous. Stop. Reflect. Ask yourself and others questions, and focus on the facts of the situation separately from opinions and feelings. Set aside your biases. Then look for the conclusions that make sense.

Resources

​ Critical Thinking Roadmap Toolkit ​

​ Critical Thinking Secrets ​

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Do you ever feel frustrated by your team members’ writing? In my experience, managers often give what they think is a straightforward writing assignment. The document they get back requires so much editing that they could have done it quicker themselves. Then they spend precious time red-lining the draft, send it back to the writer  — and still end up with a sub-par product.

To make things worse, their team members become resentful and disempowered at having their work torn apart. The team member gives a mental shrug and thinks, “Next time I won’t try so hard. She’s just going to rewrite it anyway.”

Does this sound familiar?

In the Worktalk training, we tell people that the worst writing mistakes happen before a person starts to write. This idea is equally valid when assigning writing projects. The key mistakes lie in what the person assigning the project does not say to the writer and what the writer tells him or herself about the project without verifying assumptions.

Assigning Writing Projects Successfully

You empower writers to compose successfully by giving them essential information when you set them the writing task. We call on Worktalk’s signature Three P’s planning tool to help managers assign writing projects successfully. The Three P’s are purpose, person, and point. Everyone will benefit if  you clarify these areas:

Purpose: What is the purpose of the communication? What is the desired result? 

• The primary purposes of business documents are
  • To inform
  • To request
  • To persuade.
• When a writer hears her manager say, “Write to So-and-So about X,” she is likely to assume that she is writing to inform. However, if your real purpose was to persuade or request, all the editing in the world will not get the document on track.

Person: What person will read the document?

• Understanding the reader is fundamental because we cannot achieve our purpose unless we reach our reader’s mind and heart.
• What are that reader’s pain points and hot buttons?  What do you know about his personality and interests? His desired business outcomes?

Point: What, in one sentence, is the point of this message?

• The writer needs to know what she would say if her reader saw her in the elevator and said, “I didn’t have time to read your document. Just tell me what it said.” Whatever she would reply to this question is likely the main point.

How Can Managers Use the Three P’s?

The Three P’s offer an elegant, concise way to capture the essence of a writing project in a way that your team member can understand.

• Don’t just tell them what to write: Tell them why they are writing.
• Don’t just give them the name and email address of the recipient: Tell them what the reader cares about.
  • If you don’t know the reader, think about people in that person’s industry or job role. When you reflect, you will find that you know enough to customize the message.
• Don’t assume that the team member knows the main point you want her to get across. Tell her.

Three Minutes Well Spent

Taking three minutes at the outset to clarify the Three P’s with your team member will save you hours of editing. Your team member will know why she is writing, whom she is writing to, and what she is supposed to say.

You might think all this is obvious. It is obvious – to you. But it may not be obvious to the person to whom you are assigning the task.

So, take a few minutes the next time you need someone to write for you and clarify the Three P’s. Here’s are the likely benefits to you:

• You will receive drafts that closely match your intentions
• You will spend less time revising hopeless drafts
• Your team members will feel relieved and empowered that they got the big picture of the writing assignment before they spent time drafting it.

Isn’t that worth three minutes?

In the Worktalk Managers’ training, we teach managers how to assign and revise their team members’ writing to create outstanding results without dampening morale. 
 ©2020 Elizabeth Danziger All rights reserved

Take me to your leader! Communication woes drain the lifeblood from an organization. Connect me with your decision-makers and see how Worktalk can transform communication in your world.  Contact me at lizd@worktalk.com or 310.396.8303.

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About Worktalk

Worktalk prepares teams to write clearly and confidently amid the pressures of constant communication. Our trainings and webinars equip individuals with the mindset and tactics to strengthen credibility, increase influence, and generate new possibilities.

If you’re wondering how Worktalk might make a difference in your organization, call Liz Danziger at 310.396.8303 or email lizd@worktalk.com.

To learn more about Worktalk, please visit us at www.worktalk.com!

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