Page 15 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

6 THE SPEAKING GAME

sonal and career levels, smart and talented people lacking these skills

will find the odds stacked against them. The disadvantage could be
debilitating, even insurmountable.
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Excellence in business communications should be as routine as excel-
lence in business performance. Many business leaders (like Jack
Welch) will tell you that in successful corporations, communication is
performance. Those who look, act, and sound like leaders will be seen
as leaders. And in any career, this is always a very good thing.
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If leadership in business is perceived as an asset, then an inability
to sell a product or service, command a room, run a meeting effec-
tively, enlist allies, persuade investors, inspire employees, align team
members, or compel key audiences gives the perception of no leader-
ship at all. This means that if you have a good idea, you might not
be able to sell it. If you have a vision, no one will hear it. If you have
a strategy, no one will follow it. So what does it profit us to have what

it takes, if no one can take what we have?
Warren Buffett will tell you that when any commodity, such as
an asset class or a particular stock, is perceived to be losing value,
that’s the exact moment smart investors buck the trend and look for
value. His purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway
bucked all the trends. If his long history as a champion investor is
any measure, he will probably make yet another killing. Ironically,
in business, if almost nowhere else outside politics, leadership com-
munications is another bankable asset that is actually gaining in
value—precisely because it is becoming such a rare commodity.
Unlike businesspeople, politicians have long understood the
value of leadership communications. In fact, word power is their
entire stock and trade. If anyone should doubt the power of the word
to accomplish great things, witness the incredible phenomenon of
Barack Obama, who rose like a rocket from relative obscurity in the