Episode #252: The Persuasive Leader

A friend of mine was lamenting that he had not taken the time to complete our High Impact Presentations Course. He had had it in the back of his mind for some time, that he really ought to work on these key skills, but had never managed to lock it down and actually do it. Now he is facing a really, really big pitch and he knows his capacity isn’t where it needs to be. He is not fully confident he can be successful. Uh oh!

As the leader we represent the “face” of the company. People judge the whole thing on what they see us do. Our public persona is usually contained and controlled. Internal meetings are internal and we can be a bumbling, horrible communicator and only our long suffering staff are any the wiser.

Public forays do pop up in the most unexpected places though. It might be the school PTA meeting and you make a point or even a presentation and then people suddenly connect the dots. How did so and so become the top of their organisation, when they are so hopeless at representing the company? Our verbose, rambling, incoherent offerings are total personal brand killers. We in fact might be the least articulate person in the whole firm, but everyone watching us in action, now pegs the whole organisation at our level of incompetence. Sort of the “Peter Principle” in reverse. We drag the whole organization down to our level of incompetence.

The idea that we can be technically highly competent and therefore don’t have to be competent as a presenter is a complete fallacy. Technical people in particular, really cling to this false dawn as their salvation from being hopeless presenters. This is the age of media, especially now we have access to video for everything, be it YouTube, Instagram, Facebook Live, Snapchat etc. Everyone has their own media channel. We are all seeing a lot more people “presenting” than we have ever done in world history. Up until a few years ago, we only had live performances, television and video recording, but now we have everything on show inside those mobile device we are all lugging around with us 24/7.

The game has been upped substantially, but a lot of leaders are still hoping for a return to anonymity, where their public exposure is more controlled and a lot less frequent. You can choose to be a leader recluse, but if your rivals are really exploiting the social media scene like demons on speed, then your brand begins to wither in the client and public perception. This public exposure isn’t going away. We either adapt or we disappear from plain view or we destroy our brand when we do pop up. The answer is obvious isn’t it.

The enemy of excellence is the good and that applies to representing your firm as well. I have another friend who is very photogenic, attractive, super confident and thinks he is a fantastic presenter. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is King. Because the vast majority of people never want to have to stand up and present to anyone ever and where those who do present are usually untrained and unprofessional, my friend’s skills are much better than average.

From my professional eye though, I can see a talent that has so much more potential to be polished and taken to the highest of heights. His ego is the problem here. My friend doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and is unaware of the greater potential available to him through expert coaching. He is happy to be above average, but not humble or self-aware enough to recognise that he has set a low bar against what is possible.

My friend who has the big pitch coming is lucky because I have offered to spend a couple of hours coaching him to make this opportunity a total winner. He has access to expert input before the pitch, because of our personal relationship. It is a bit of a wing and a prayer though for you to hope that one of your friends will be there to bail you out at the that last moment.

Rather, go and get the training now. You can do the High impact Course in two days. That is doable and the skill and confidence that comes with the right training far exceeds the time required. “Don’t leave home without it” was a great tagline from the past. Presenting is a core skill that every leader would be wise to master. That skill, once secured, means you can walk out the door everyday knowing you are going to be excellent every time, every audience, every location and every topic.