Build a Leadership Platform for ART-ful Leadership Communication

Welcome to Cultivating Leadership Presence! This biweekly newsletter shares actionable tips, exercises, skills, and stories to help you embody leadership presence and speak authentically… so you can lead yourself and others to greatness!

In 2021, while training leadership presence and presentation skills to a group of high-potential employees at an energy firm, one VP participant raved that their CEO “was always ready to talk.” She said no matter where the CEO was or who he was with, he always seemed prepared to talk. I loved her phrase “always ready to talk!” I used it to coin the phrase “the A R T of leadership communication.” You can expand your capacity to always be ready to talk by building a leadership platform.?

A leadership platform is a scaffolding of content that are the bullet points of your key leadership messages for which you take a stand. It’s the ideas, intentions, directions, goals, values, and visions that you believe the organization needs and for which you want to be remembered. When you build your leadership platform, you are always be ready to talk about.

To build a leadership platform, spend some deep-thinking time to list the most important 3 to 5 topics that you need to communicate to stakeholders at various levels. These topics should focus on the critical messages that team members, peers, senior leaders, board members and even clients need to understand that you believe are important. These are the messages that help you lead your organization forward to greater success.

To list the topics for each stakeholder, ask yourself, “What am I willing to take a stand for within each stakeholder group? What is my deepest thinking based on my experience, expertise and intuition?” In some cases, your topics will be things that you have said many times and you will keep repeating many times in the future. In some cases, these topics may be forward thinking, visionary, or even challenging. Make sure the topics are what you really mean to say and that they come from your inner authority. They must reflect your deepest thinking and intent to guide the company forward. They must also be in alignment with the company goals, vision, mission, and within the boundaries of your role.

Step 1. Start by listing the various stakeholders with whom you must communicate.

Step 2. List the key topics or messages that you want to deliver to each group.

Step 3. Write a snippet of content for each message. ?One minute is often all that you need. Sometimes just 30 seconds will be enough to make an impact. ?When you write the basic content for each message, you’ll be able to improvise off of each topic when you’re actually speaking.

Step 4. Practice speaking your topics aloud, that means say them out loud into a room. When you practice aloud, you’ll make changes and find the right words for each topic.

?OK, I hear you thinking. I know this is a lot of work! I promise it will be worth the effort. You will feel so prepared to speak in meetings, impromptu settings, and even large presentations. Others will know what you stand for and your leadership presence will be felt. You will appear ART–ful in communicating. Just as the energy company VP who raved about her CEO’s, communication skills, others in your organization will admire the fact that you are always ready to talk.?

If you have a topic or question you would like for me to discuss, please send a message to https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/SandraZimmer/. I’ll do my best to create a newsletter article that addresses your interest. If you’d like to read more about me and my work, please visit www.sandrazimmer.com

?Sandra Zimmer guides professionals to speak authentically and embody leadership presence. Clients say she calms their nerves and magnifies their brilliance, giving them confidence to speak from a zone beyond what they thought they could do. She coaches them to develop physical presence, vocal power, message clarity, genuine connection, storytelling, keynote talks, presentation skills, interview preparation and gravitas.