#50 The Sound of Ink

Finding your leadership voice can sometimes take an entire career to figure out; some people never quite figure it out. 

Finding your leadership voice is an exploration of your values, brand, and convictions.

Your leadership voice determines your effectiveness when it comes to influence, relationships, and outcomes.

One of my favorite authors, Skip Prichard – The Book of Mistakes, defines finding your voice in this way:

To “find your voice as a leader” is to create a compelling and unique leadership brand by:

– Discovering your critical leadership VALUES;

– Creating a compelling vision to get the OUTCOMES you desire;

– Building relationships with INFLUENCE and credibility;

– Making decisions that reveal your COURAGE to take a stand;

– Communicating your overall EXPRESSION to create a lasting legacy.

I built my leadership voice through experiences, adversity, and people who believed in me sometimes more than I believed in myself. Gender, industry, and profession were powerful influences on the development of my leadership voice.

I worked in Information Technology in the Insurance industry, both male-dominated environments, for many years.

Each year, the @catalyst campaign, #biascorrect, helps surface the unconscious biases women face when finding their leadership voice. This year I chose “pushy,” which translates to persuasive. Here’s the link to my post.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/maryannespatola_biascorrect-mentoringworks-executivecoaching-activity-6642428265019564032-EhBE

When it comes to the written word, the author's voice refers to a writer's style, the quality that makes their writing unique; it’s the sound of ink.

When I started this writing challenge, I knew I would be intentional about the sound of ink I wanted to create. My vision was to create simple, impactful, and meaningful articles about the #futureofwork to help leaders move forward. COVID fueled my passion for completing the series.

So I leaned into a mantra from my leadership voice that has made me successful – past and present.

Dirty Dozen lesson #3 Find your voice

Many great ideas were born by putting pen to paper. 

Writing an article, as an example, requires you to research a topic, organize ideas, and think through how the item can make the most significant impact. 

Here is my three B strategy. I learned this model from an executive presence workshop early in my career.

Be Brief. Make your points short, laser-focused, and simple. Brevity demonstrates your ability to synthesize information and deliver it in a way that conveys respect for other people’s time and attention.

Be Brilliant. Dazzle your readers (listeners) by making salient points with curated content that adds value. Make your content useful for your audience and easy to digest.

Be Gone. Make your points and STOP. Rambling or adding words to fill space serves no one. Further, lingering on detracts from being brief and being brilliant. Your readers and listeners alike will be grateful for your ability to know when to stop.

These three B’s are the foundational elements of making succinct points with power. Focusing on the three B’s guided me to write short articles targeted towards a relevant topic that was important to my readers and me.

I have received unsolicited feedback from my readers throughout the year, saying the brevity and laser focus on topics has been helpful and worthwhile.

The sound of ink came to life by shaping my written leadership voice in ways I couldn’t have imagined. 

How have you defined your leadership voice?