Five Attributes of an Effective Presentation

Is your presentation a "Simple, Concrete, Credible and Emotional Story"? If it is, your impact will increase significantly.

• Simple: Avoid jargon and corporate-speak. With attention spans shrinking, you need to speak in easy-to-grasp common English. Think of President Kennedy's simple and concrete space mission: Put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade.
• Concrete: Be specific; avoid generalities. Establish concrete goals and benchmarks to show what you plan to do and how. It's better to "open 10 new accounts" than to "increase sales", because details resonate with a listener.
• Credibility: What's essential to your audience believing your message? Is it a prior track-record or the skills with which to face the next challenge? Is it industry expertise or M&A experience? And when you present statistics, put them in perspective. Is a 13% increase in sales really good, when the goal was 18% and the team average was 21%?
• Emotion: Once people have established a fact-based framework, they make decisions based on emotions. You may have the best solution, but if there's no trust or confidence, you'll lose to your competitor.
  (That's why the lowest cost provider is usually not the winner!)
• Story: We're used to telling and hearing stories to make points and motivate action; that's our comfort-zone. So if the thought of "presenting" makes you anxious, think of it as "sharing a story" and you'll feel more comfortable.

Five Tips to Increase Leadership Effectiveness

Over the years, we've had the privilege of coaching executives to become more effective leaders not just for people they supervise (down), but also those they report to (up) and they work with (across).

Here are 5 Tips to help adapt to such "in the center" leadership realities.

• Understand job responsibilities. What is expected of you and what do you expect from them? How clear is everyone? How do you communicate differences and negotiate common ground?
• Address empowerment. How much authority and responsibility does your boss give you? How much do you give your staff, and how do you establish the rules with colleagues?
• Take the initiative - cautiously. Leaders take the initiative. Within a team, everyone has to feel empowered to do so. Therefore the goal is to take the initiative while at the same time encouraging others so there is a creative give-and-take and no one feels boundaries have been overstepped.
• Create a culture of 360-degree leadership. This means developing norms, values, practices and organizational structure which encourages all three forms of leadership and provides appreciation for appropriate behaviors.
• Use feedback to expand people's ability to grow as leaders and increase organizational effectiveness.

Five Key Leadership Attributes

• Leaders care about achieving the organization's goals and about the people that make up the organization.
• Leaders exude trust - by demonstrating their character
• Leaders earn respect - by being competent
• Leaders are approachable - by being consistent
• Leaders attract admiration - by staying committed to the firm and people