Joel Schwartzberg - The Language of Leadership: How to Engage and Inspire Your Team

The Language of Leadership

Copyright 2021 by Joel Schwartzberg

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First Edition

Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-5230-9240-6

PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-9241-3

IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-9242-0

Digital audio ISBN 978-1-5230-9243-7

2021-1

Book producer and text designer: Happenstance Type-O-Rama; Cover designer: Howie Severson

Dedicated to the thousands of leadersactual and aspiringIve been honored to help for the last fifteen years.

Where you lead, I will follow, anywhere that you tell me to. If you need me to be with you, I will follow where you lead.

Carole King

T heres no shortage of advice on the Internet and in bookstores about business leadership.

We all know well, for example, that great leaders Eat Last, Lean In, Break the Rules, Dare to Lead, and are Radically Candid. We also know theyre extremely aware of their Tribes, Drive, and Principles. For some, leadership boils down to just two words: Steve Jobs.

We also know that admired leaders are empathic, optimistic, visionary, responsive, authentic, supportive, confident, humble... and a bunch of other hashtag-friendly adjectives that convey what great leaders are and do. (Thats not even counting synonyms.)

However, consider this: its one thing for a leader to be empathic, optimistic, visionary, responsive, authentic, supportive, confident, and humble, but another to convey those qualities to their teams. So how are those qualities conveyed? Do leaders draw pictures, engage in interpretive dance, or employ telepathy?

No. Leaders speak and write. They communicate.

The impression made through these communications could not be more criticalleadership language is often the first and most influential piece of evidence internal teams use to assess their leaders and the most potent device leaders have to lay essential foundations of confidence, competence, and commitment.

Throughout my professional life, including stints with Nickelodeon, Time Inc., and PBS, the leaders I admired most were executives who found the right languagewhether prepared in advance or uttered spontaneouslyto get my attention, earn my trust, inspire my best work, and make me want to stay at my job.

Im not alone. In an April 2019 survey conducted by the strategic advisory firm Brunswick Group, 93 percent of US workers indicated that leadership that communicates directly and transparently was a very important (57 percent) or somewhat important (36 percent) reason to stay at their current job.

This value scored higher on the surveys job retention scale than other weighty considerations, including leadership you recognize and respect, the role the company plays in the world, and the role your job plays in the world. In fact, in terms of positive job retention considerations, leadership that communicates directly and transparently was only bested by pay and benefits.

Because the perception of leadership is dominated by language, the critical ability to engage and inspire teams with effective languagein everything from speeches and videos to emails and meetingsis crucial to successful leadership. Even with finicky board members, anxious shareholders, and pivotal bottom lines to manage, a leaders top job is to lead through language. Effective communicators are exalted; ineffective communicators are excused.

The language of leadership is not merely about the words you use. Its also about the philosophical and tactical approaches you take to succeed in communication opportunities, including asking yourself vital questions about your purpose, knowing what to include and exclude, and taking deliberate and mindful measures to not just share, but sell your ideas.

This book contains the most valuable leadership communication ideas Ive witnessed, learned, experimented with, and taught to help leaders engage and inspire their teams. Im also covering as many platforms, scenarios, and event triggers as I canfrom crisis communications and corporate restructuring to personal videos and Zoom meetings.

My ultimate hope is that, whether you lead a Fortune 500 company, a top-notch marketing team, or a small nonprofit committee, these recommendations will elevate the impact you have on employees, customers, members, and followers. So, what do you say? And how do you say it? Lets start by getting inside your head.

Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.

Dianne Feinstein

U tilizing the Language of Leadership starts where all ideas begin: in your head, not with your mouth or on your keyboard. This first chapter focuses on strategic mindsets that will enable you to formulate meaningful points.

Some of my executive clientsand a surprising number of online articlesinsist that useful information is a crucial driver of effective leadership.

These may be leaders who do the following:

Read the content on PowerPoint pages but dont contextualize it or explain why it matters

Convey data points but not the point of the data