Page 166 - Free Yourself From

Chapter 8

Making Your Words Count

The Art of Conversation—Something

Worth Talking About

Your credibility and power as a leader depends greatly on how others
perceive you. And since how well you communicate greatly impacts
that perception of you, it’s probably true that you are what you say
and how you say it. So, making your words count—ensuring that you
get the attention and respect you desire and deserve when you speak—
is ultimately critical to your success. The image you convey with every
aspect of your communication will help or hinder your ability to influ-
ence people, impact decisions, and will play a major role in deter-
mining whether or not you are invited into the higher ranks that lead
to the executive suite.
Now, it might seem that this should be easy for us to do well
because communication is a skill we use every hour of every day.
Much research supports my personal experience that as leaders and
executives, we spend close to 80 percent of our day communicating.
Unfortunately, I think because we use our communication skills so
continuously, we take them for granted and don’t work to develop
them after we begin to achieve success in an organization. So, it’s no

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