One thing that impresses me about someone who is excellent at their job, sport, vocation, they are noticeably EXCELLENT. A leader is excellent at many things that define leadership. One of those elements is COMMUNICATION.
Great managers, great leaders are excellent at communicating. If in memo format, they not only are brief but they write in a way that is understandable, clearly comprehendible by their audience. Brevity is something to which they strive but never at the expense of being thorough in communicating their message. No room for misunderstanding when directing valuable resources. People are the most valuable resource a corporation has. When cranking up the “troops” to solidify employees to rally to a particular objective or a particular focus, successful managers are absolutely excellent at doing so. When speaking in front of audiences, successful managers are eloquent, they articulate well, they use a splash of metaphors when it pushes home their key points, etc.
How do these great managers get so good at communicating? They study great orators. They study the art of public speaking. They study others who speak before large audiences. Then they practice. You can bet that none but the most arrogant and egotistical manager or leader would dare to stand before an audience of the corporation’s most valuable resources and merely ad-lib. They prepare. They perspire over every word days before a critical presentation or a critical speech.
And, one thing in particular that differentiates good from great communicators is the effort they invest to discover those people who make some of the most significant contributions to corporate objectives. Those significant contributors are seldom just the big cheeses of the company. Those great contributors most often come from the ranks of employees who blossom within the depths of corporate challenges and somehow find ways to succeed in delivering excellence within those corporate challenges. THOSE EMPLOYEES deserve to be acknowledged by managers and the rest of the leadership.
The greatest of communicators are made partially great because they know how to acknowledge and recognize great employees who make maximum contributions to corporate objectives and goals.
Great communicators put forth a great effort to acknowledge great contributors. The karma is all too apparent: by acknowledging great contributors from among the ranks of employees, managers elevate themselves into the ranks of great communicators.
