Speaking to Influence with Laura Sicola
[00:00:00] Welcome in, everyone. You are listening to the Authority Podcast on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks, as always, for being with us. And today's a special day. We're going to kick off a four episode miniseries on finding your voice and increasing your influence as a leader.
Today's episode will be the first of that series, but in upcoming episodes with Michael Davis, Matt Rolnick, and Ryan Millar will continue to dive into topics such as the voice of a leader, storytelling skills, using a variety of communication channels, and more. So we are going to kick off the series today with my guest, Dr. Laura Sicola. She is a leadership communication and influence expert and a renowned speaker and also a former bilingual K 12 teacher and a [00:01:00] university professor who holds a PhD in educational linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania.
With over 20 years of experience, she has coached TED speakers, delivered her own TED Talk with over 7 million views, and has had clients including notable organizations like Comcast, GSK, and IBM. Her book is called Speaking to Influence, Mastering Your Leadership Voice. That is what we're talking about today.
Laura, welcome to the show.
Ross, thank you so much for the invitation. So glad to be here.
Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you. And I wanted to start out we're talking about mastering your leadership voice. So I think we should define what we're talking about when we say leader in this case, right? And a lot of times we talk about being a leader as a person. Actions versus titles and that, but you also add another important perspective to it around whether you are seen as a leader, right?
Versus whether you define yourself as a leader. And can you talk about that point, that perception of a leader and why that matters?
Absolutely. I [00:02:00] think we get stuck on titles, as you mentioned. You can be in a leadership role, whatever that official role or title is, but not be perceived as a leader by those who are supposed to be following you. I mean, that's the definite, the distinction, right? A leader is one who leads as opposed to following per se.
Anyway. And. The way that you communicate is really going to make a difference as to whether or not people trust you, whether or not people buy into you and are comfortable following. So if you could be the president of company XYZ or superintendent of whatever school district and not be perceived as a leader, at which point you're just the boss.
People comply because they want to keep their jobs, but their hearts aren't in it, their minds and their souls aren't in it, where you could be an intern, you could be a first year teacher, and really be seen as someone who has it, someone who's all there, there's something [00:03:00] about them that just makes you trust them, makes you pay attention when they speak, and makes you listen.
And that's what we really want to achieve, regardless of all the other stuff. How do you develop that it factor that makes people sit up and take notice, want to hear more, want to follow, in one capacity or another? It's that leadership presence, not the leadership title that matters.
Yeah. And I think based on the definition you gave, it also fits into what some people may identify as. leading by example, right? The other people see you and just feel your leadership based on the actions you take, the way you go about your business. And that, that connects with folks regardless of what your title is, right?
And you can be even more junior level, but you can clearly have leadership competencies. But, I also think some people may, their [00:04:00] definition or perception of leadership by example may exclude leadership by communication, or it may be independent of it. I'm wondering your perspective of, I mean, can one be an effective leader without being an effective or intentional communicator?
I don't believe that that's possible. No. I mean, Even trying to imagine what that would look like. A leader is someone who has a vision and can convey that vision to others in a way that gets them on board and wanting to be part of seeing it come true. But if you can't articulate to someone what it is that you're trying to achieve, what you want to help them achieve, you're stuck.
in first gear. You're not going to get anywhere. So now there's leading by example in the sense of, okay, maybe you're the lead teacher for the grade level or for the subject, the department, because you're the best model of teaching. So [00:05:00] you lead by teaching because people can watch you and see what you're doing, learn best practices, et cetera.
That at best is going to keep you more or less where you are. are and not help you rise beyond and then be able to help more people. No matter how many people you can help by just being good at it, what it is that you do and letting them passively watch, you will influence that many more people when you can help translate your expertise, when you can explain, when you can help, and you can guide someone to help see what they're doing.
what, why they're not having the success that you are. Maybe they think they're doing exactly what you're doing, but something's off. You have to be able to communicate. I don't know how you can teach without being a good communicator. So why should leadership be any different? And leadership is teaching, teaching is leading.
They just have different labels and different you're standing in different locations in the school, but it is, they are still very much overlapping.
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Thinking through thiss idea in real [00:06:00] time, so maybe it won't come out right, but it's making me think about, Learning via explicit instruction, right, and learning via experience, learning and the power of the combination of them and not seeing them as that they should stand on their own or be, and I'm thinking of myself and a lot of things, say, in my career, that just learned by figuring them out and learning how to do them and then I had a harder time being able to teach them to someone else because I didn't have the right terminology, or I was figuring out the language around it, right?
And, but then when I went and did some professional learning around those things, it allowed me to match up my experience and my hands on knowledge of it with the framework and structure and terminology and then be able to, and [00:07:00] so from a perspective of an educator, right, thinking about Okay, why is it so important to be able to do that?
Because that gives learners a much better Metacognition over their learning, right? And understanding of the learning objectives and the goals and the ability to integrate their personal experience with seeing it within a structure and then be able to communicate that to a partner that they're working with, right?
Or move it forward. And I guess all of that to say that if you're strictly trying to absorb things only by. example, right, that something is missing. There might be something you know really well, but you have a hard time explaining it because you, that piece was missing from your learning or from organizationally from what a leader was trying to lead an organization toward.
And I think it's important, especially from the education perspective, there are many different ways that people [00:08:00] learn. There are those who like explicit instruction. There are those who need modeling. There are those who just want to tinker and work through stuff. There are so many different ways that different people will learn.
But. One way or another, if the only method that someone has to learn is by figuring stuff out for themselves, whether they're reading up on it or watching a YouTube video or something, there is no leader in that space. It's just someone's able to figure stuff out for themselves. So if you are going to be in a leadership role, what value does your presence add?
If this person is no better off talking to you than going to find something else out on a YouTube video, you literally add no value. to the arrangement. So why would we call you a leader? You're not. What value do you add? I think this is what we need to figure out.
And it leaves you, I mean, perhaps as a learner, not necessarily knowing what you know, right? Because if you learn something hands on, and, but nobody ever [00:09:00] explained to you the processes of it or structure. And then one day you're asked, Hey, can you do this? And you're thinking I'm confused by that request.
I don't know if I know how to do that, but you absolutely do. You've done it a bunch of times, but nobody gave you that articulation of the vision, of the goals, the objectives, what you're working toward. And so, anyhow, those are important together, right? And
Like in foreign language learning, there are those I love foreign languages. That was one of my earliest inspirations to that sort of headed me out in the career direction that I have taken. But I am somebody who I like the explanation. Grammar just makes sense to me. Give me the verb conjugation charts and explain to me how they go.
And once I hear the explanation and I see the pattern, it's just in my head and I can use it pretty easily. There are others who are like, Oh, don't give me. You know, verb conjugation tables, they make their eyes glaze over. They want to just go and figure stuff out. They want to interact with others and kind of wing it and play with the [00:10:00] language.
There are others who need to listen to lots of examples, and that's okay. For me, because I like the rules, my brain processes language rules well, I've been using Duolingo to work on Italian the last couple of years, and it's great in many ways, but boy do I wish that there were more. more explicit explanations.
There's a little bit, but I would really like to see some charts just because my brain would process it faster. That's not offered to me. So I then, if someone were to say, Hey, tell me about this rule, I have to really think about how it works. I don't know that I could explain it to someone as easily as if I had been taught it directly.
So you're absolutely right that we're, what's missing as a result of that metacognitive knowledge, which for many people is useful.
Yeah. All right. So we've defined that effective communication is requisite for leadership. And so the book is about mastering your leadership voice. What is the leadership voice? How and how individual are they? Is there one type? Are there four types? Are there potentially unlimited? Like how does [00:11:00] that look?
Leader to leader.
Sure. And there, It's unlimited. The question, what, it's like saying how many different outfits are there to wear. There's a thousand different kinds of combinations of clothing that you could put on in a day. And as far as deciding what you should wear, well, it depends on where you're going. What kind of event is it?
Is it you're going to the gym? Are you going to speak at a parent teacher organization meeting? Are you running for office? Are you is it the annual holiday party formal of some sort? You need to know how to dress. And for that audience for that occasion, similarly, the way that you speak is going to be different.
If you're in the classroom and you teach kindergarten, the voice that you use with your children to show them leadership and have them be confident in you, have them trust you, have them follow instructions, et cetera, is very different from when you're running. Part of the weekly staff meeting after school, the one you're talking to the other teachers, you can't talk [00:12:00] to the kids the way you talk to the teachers or the teachers the way you talk to the kindergartners because at least one group is going to look at you funny and most likely tune out.
But what's most important to recognize is that it's not saying that one of those is real leadership and one of those is faking it. You're leading in both spaces, but if we call one your teacher voice and one your you know, peer leadership voice, or one's your classroom voice and one's your, peer meeting voice, then if the analogy that I like to use is what I call your prismatic voice.
So if you think about, if you've ever seen one of those little crystals that hangs from the rear of your mirror, or maybe from your kitchen window, the sun hits it and a little rainbow comes out the other side, the same way that the white light refracts through that little crystal, that little prism, and then all those colors, which are inside the white light, suddenly become visible.
We are white light like that. We have all those different colors in us. I have my teacher voice. I have my mommy voice. I have [00:13:00] my executive coaching voice. I have my podcast storytelling voice. I have my, they're all me. Just like in my wardrobe, I've got my gym outfit, I've got my formal black tie event, I've got my you know, work, business casual kind of attire.
They're all me, they're all my flavor, but I know when to switch to each. So my classroom teacher voice might be my green, my running a staff meeting voice might be orange. I just need to know for each. location, which color and tint I want to turn up and which ones I want to turn down a little bit because it's in service of my objectives and what I want to deliver in service of the people I'm talking to, the people I'm leading.
Yeah. Yeah. So connecting these topics, I mean, you referenced various scenarios. Who am I talking to? Speaking to here, what do I need to achieve that this group or how do I need to be perceived here in order to achieve what I want to [00:14:00] achieve? And that goes to establishing goals. I mean, image and reputation are a big part of that.
And and I think that's a really important thing to touch on for our listeners here and thinking about how. to really view, understand, and pursue these goals authentically and not seeing it. You know, I think the word image, right? There's a lot of connotations around it, but it can feel like artificial or I'm trying to create an image of myself that's different from what I am.
And I'm confident that's not what you are writing about here. Can we talk about You know, certainly injecting authenticity into this process and how to go about understanding the objectives, mapping them out, and understanding why it's so relevant to being able to achieve impact as a leader,
Knowing your audience is always step one. Whom are you talking to [00:15:00] and why? What value do you want to provide in this conversation? And I think everyone out there realizes that you They can't address if you go from teaching kindergarten to then teaching fifth grade the next year to then teaching high school the next year, you're going to have to adapt your communication style if you want the kids to follow.
And it's not to say but I like teaching kindergarten. I, that's, that felt natural. That was fun. That was comfortable to me. Well, you're teaching ninth grade algebra now. You can say, but I liked my kindergarten teacher voice. and then expect to get run over on a daily basis. Or you can adapt and recognize that I, because we do have that range, we may have a default style that we prefer, but to step out of that preferred into something that's going to get the results that you need in that new context is not being inauthentic.
It's stretching. There's a big difference, huge difference [00:16:00] between the comfort zone and authenticity. Because by definition, to step out of the comfort zone, to learn something new, to grow to have new opportunities. You're going to be uncomfortable. Oh my gosh. I mean, any administrator out there who went from teaching for 10, 15 years and then suddenly is in their first administrative role, maybe a vice principal role or a director of whatever programs.
That, I'm sure, felt awkward. There were a lot of learning. It was exciting. You wanted it. But it. didn't feel totally natural in the beginning. You made a lot of mistakes. You weren't as good at it as you were in your regular classroom teaching role. Did it mean you're authentic because you're not as comfortable or as effective or as good or as natural?
No, of course not. The goal then is to expand your skill set and your, we'll call it your communication repertoire in that space, so that you become as good in that new role, if not better, than you were in your original role. So that [00:17:00] expansion of identity, not that exchange of identity, you're not sacrificing who you are to become this new role, it's you're expanding to be able to switch gears.
easily between both communication styles as necessary and as desired. It's an empowerment. Just like you learn Spanish when you're a native English speaker or whatever other languages you want to talk about. I'm not giving up my English to learn Spanish. I added Spanish to my English and that empowers me to do more, to have more influence, to have more effect, to be able to contribute more.
And that's really my service. Goal. So I just dumped a lot on you there, Ross. Tell me what you're thinking.
Yeah, and I, those are all great examples and another way that I'm thinking about it is, I mean, the most important point, first thing you said, starts with your audience, right? Right. It doesn't start with you. Okay, here's what I want to [00:18:00] be. And okay, well, who is, who am I communicating to?
Who's looking at me? Who am I leading? And what, resonates with them? What makes sense to them? And here's all the different things about me. What are the things that are relevant to my audience? There's certain things that I to your point about learning Spanish, right? If you're, if you go and you're giving a speech to an audience of English speakers, but you decide I'm going to give the speech in Spanish because I'm so proud that I know Spanish now that's not really helping anybody or you know, or even impressing them.
But if you're looking at it as, well, I want to show what I know. So let me, and it's like, well, okay, great. But nobody understands what you're saying. So you're not actually You know, getting your point across, right? It's it's not diminishing yourself and it's certainly not creating an alternate identity, but it's saying, okay, what are all the parts of me?
And what are the [00:19:00] things that are are important to the people I'm working with? What are the things that help them understand me better? And understanding you better might be Knowing about the two things that connect with them and not necessarily saying, let me tell you 20 different things and you figure out what works for you.
You know, it's interesting, as just personal example, as you mentioned in introducing me originally, I did teach K 12 for a number of years, and then I went into university space. I got my degree and was teaching was, training teachers in the graduate program over at University of Pennsylvania. And then eventually, I moved into this consulting world and doing more professional, more corporate kinds of trainings and coaching.
And the biggest shift for me was realizing that for Especially for the decade that I was in the university space, and they beat into my head how if I wanted a PhD, I had to be able to write like this, [00:20:00] talk like this, I had to be able to use this kind of language, vocabulary, talk theory, and all these things.
And when I went to do corporate trainings, they're like, Yeah, could you not do any of that? And I just was like but, do you know how much effort it took me to learn and to get good at this and to be successful in this area? And now you're telling me just to forget all of it? And it basically said, yeah, want us to pay you? Talk like this instead. And it was hard because that was part of where my ego and my pride was. It was like, I spent a lot of time I had to learn that to be able to get the credential to get the degree, which I was really proud of, and which is what helped me get those jobs in the first place.
But it was really wrestling with what is my identity and how much of my identity is wrapped up in talking in a certain way, which is a skill set that I have that is a part of my identity. It is not. it does not define who I am. So to reshift into less academic, professory kind of [00:21:00] language, I wasn't giving up my identity.
I was just learning to speak another language, call it Chinese, Arabic whatever. But to connect with that audience better to your example of Spanish versus English a minute ago, you got to learn to speak the language of your audience if you want them to be able to listen.
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Yeah. And I mean, to put oneself in the shoes to understand how important and the utility of this think about the scenarios where you may not know who your audience is and how hard it is to figure out. What to say, right? In this in preparing for this conversation, we know who the audience is, so we're talking about the things that matter to them.
I've been interviewed in places before where I didn't have a clear understanding or it was more generalized where there wasn't as much of a Combining factor. And when asked to say what I do, it's like all this and this and it's whoever's listening, at least a lot of this is irrelevant to them, but I don't know what they want to hear.
It's I guess the example going back to our previous [00:22:00] illustration is if you were asked to go and give a speech and you. didn't know what what language the audience spoke. And you had to say, well, I guess let me give the speech once in English, and then let me give it again in Spanish, or hopefully they speak at least one of those languages, because if they don't, then I really don't know.
So listeners, you can kind of put yourself in the mind space of, okay, yes, right, when I don't know who I'm speaking, or I wasn't, when I haven't taken the time to think about. Who are they? What are their questions? What are their concerns? What do they want to know? What do they need to know?
What are the things I need to really proactively discuss or surface regarding our mission, vision, and values, right? To make sure it's clear what we're doing here. Yes, okay, now I can understand why it would be really hard for them to get much out of it if I'm all over the place or I'm not really clear about that.
So In those goals, I think it makes sense to go to how to choose the right words and [00:23:00] the right things to say. And I'm thinking like part of this is that perspective taking piece of saying, okay, well, like, what are the things that make sense to the people I'm talking to? And I also would think like having reps, right?
Like getting in routines and doing this consistently, you're going to get better at it. You know, I, when we first start doing any of this stuff, when I listened to the earliest podcasts I did years ago, it was really painful and I still can listen back and think, Oh, I wish this was better or worse, but I can track, okay, I'm better because I had more time doing it and more, but what are some of the important pieces on your end of choosing and using the right words?
I think one is considering the relative expertise of your audience, so things like acronyms and jargon and more technical language you at some point early in our conversation, I don't recall if [00:24:00] it was before or after we hit the record button, but if you use the word metacognitive, which, of course, in the education space is totally normal parlance.
We talk about all that kind of stuff, metacognitive awareness, metalinguistic awareness. That is not something that is part of the space when I'm doing training for IT departments, or finance departments. They don't talk about metacognitive awareness. They're like, so I need to be mindful of that, or when I'm coaching somebody else on presentations, they're going to give acronyms.
Education, like every other industry, has a whole alphabet soup worth of acronyms to their space. So, who are you talking to when you're presenting some information? Is it to parents? Are you dropping lots of acronyms of different tests, of different resources, of different you know, IEP assessments and whatever else?
Does the parent know what you're talking about? Have you gotten so used to using these acronyms internally that you forget what's not obvious to everybody else? So being careful [00:25:00] to define your terms and not assuming that the audience does inherently know what you're talking about. Maybe you teach fifth grade but, I don't get to realize we're talking mostly to administrators, but if you're, Hypothetically, teaching fifth grade, you may assume that the parents should know all this stuff because the kid's been in the school for five years already, but maybe they just moved into the neighborhood last month.
So, there's a lot that they don't know. How do we identify those gaps and make sure that we help gently to catch people up so that they can start with us where we need them to be. I think that's a really important part, is forgetting. It's a lot of what I like to call the expert's curse, where when you're so good at something, you're so comfortable in something, you're so used to it, that you forget what's not obvious.
or necessary or interesting to everybody else and what we do and don't need to fill them in on along the way. So being mindful of when we get caught in that expert's curse is, I think, the first step [00:26:00] to really helping us be better able to connect with other people. And if we don't connect, you can't have influence.
Yeah, I think it relates to the writing tip, be clear, not clever. And having a structure around it and being able to have the people are hearing it have a framework for absorbing what you're saying, not losing them with words that You know, oh, this sounds impressive, this person's so smart, but I don't understand anything they're saying, or we a lot of us probably had the experience of being at a conference or an event, and there is one speaker who you feel like is so great, because you just love what they're saying, but 10 minutes later, you can't.
I can't really say what they spoke about because there wasn't necessarily a framework and there's another one that seems a little repetitive or, but you can exactly remember the main points and and. Depending on who your audience is and the context, that might look different case to case, but certainly as far as the [00:27:00] jargon, the acronyms and those kind of things and that goes all the way back to really thinking about it, discussing it in that explicit learning, right?
Because I think a lot of folks may end up in a position where, They have a hard time thinking of a different way to say that thing because they're so used to that term. And that's why you have to think about it ahead of time and think, okay, the people I'm talking to aren't really going to know what this is, or there is a, there's a, some kind of charge to that language or term, or it's something that different people have different ideas of.
So I need to, let me just say it a different way so that we can all be talking about the same thing. And
I think part of it is being able to, for analogies. help people understand it. Tell a little bit of a story or paint a picture that this new curriculum we're working on, it's going to be a little bit of a roller coaster because we're going to have these high points over here and then there's these quick drops over here and, or whatever system you're trying to explain the Roy G.
Biv rainbow [00:28:00] or the photosynthesis cycle or protein synthesis. If you can explain the, if you're an administration, maybe there's a new bill that's been passed from the state regarding whatever new requirements there are, etc. Can you give an analogy instead of just giving the dry, here are the facts and here are the steps and here's the timeline?
Paint a picture for me with something that's a little bit more concrete, with something that relates to something I have experienced and show me how it's alike or different from that thing. It just makes your content relatable. and digestible and thereby memorable. And I think that's a, we're very good at just opening mouth, turn on fire hose, and drown the other person in data just talking at them instead of connecting with them.
And to your earlier point, people are very good at just, I think, frankly, it's a little bit of an ego thing based off of insecurity when we're talking to an audience maybe that we're not as confident in [00:29:00] front of. I know an awful lot of teachers who are like, I'm totally comfortable talking in front of a group of kids.
But don't put me in front of a group of teachers. I'm not talking, I'm not going to lead part of the staff meeting. And administrators are the same. I can talk in front of my team fine, but don't send me to the state capitol to represent at a conference or to speak at a, I'm not doing that. We all have our comfort and our not comfort zones.
And when we're feeling a little insecure in there, one of the things we often tend to do is to use more big words, to try to sound smart. Recovering for our own insecurity. So to your point, as opposed, we try to sound clever, instead of trying to just sound clear. And in reality, if we can simplify the message, we actually, the best way to sound to make people think you're smart is to help them feel smart, by making what you're saying, so crystal clear and easy to understand, they go, Oh, got it.
Thanks. Now I can agree with you. Instead of, wow, I heard a lot of really big words. She sounds like she's really smart. I just didn't actually understand anything she said. Well, [00:30:00] congrats. That was a lot of wasted breath, wasn't it?
Yeah, it's a challenging instinct sometimes to slide more toward the simplicity end of the spectrum versus the complicated end, right? Or more towards the humility versus whatever the opposite, overconfidence is. But but understanding that I guess there's a couple of buckets when people are.
I think they're out of their comfort zone where it's either I don't know what these people want, or I think I know what they want and I don't think I can give it to them, but oftentimes, right, like making the other people around you feel smart makes them like you more, right, versus worrying too much about trying to prove how smart you are.
And okay, how do I do that? How do I ask the right questions? And just You know, share what I know from my experience, and it's true and authentic to me, and nobody can dispute that, and I don't have to worry about being a bunch of other things that, that I might not be.
Let's [00:31:00] talk leadership presence.
So there's vocal presence, there's physical presence. I mean, what are the elements that make up the presence the presence of a leader and how can leaders, I guess, make sure they're trying to exhibit those,
Sure. The, so your presence is all about the way that you show up at the impression that you make, the impression that sticks. And. When, so it does include everything from what you say to how you say it and how your physical presence, your vocal presence. We talked a lot about the verbal part, the stories, the explanations, the jargon the degree of detail and, you know.
specifics, etc. Being able, there was a study that came out probably 10 years ago that I think is still very relevant and does have easy application into the education space, not just corporate, but it was from the Center for Talent Innovation and it was about executive presence and they broke it [00:32:00] down into like three different categories three different pillars, if you will, and it was Appearance, Communication, and Gravitas.
Now, I don't necessarily see them as completely inextricable, but they, or excuse me, completely distinct, but I understand what they were doing, and what they were saying is things like, okay, appearance, it's not that you have to dress like, in a full, three piece suit or whatever every day, but you do need to dress appropriate for the role and for the authority that the role commands in the context.
So if you are the principal of a school or the superintendent and you're walking in shorts and a t shirt every day, you look more like the gym teacher than the overarching leader. You're going to be talking with parents who are coming in. You're going to be talking with vendors. You're going to be doing all sorts of things.
Are you going to throw them off? Do you perhaps not look as serious? Does it cast doubt in their minds because you don't look like you're in their mind? You may not look like you're [00:33:00] taking yourself or their job, your job, or their children seriously. The communication skills is everything from can you explain things clearly?
Do you use fillers when you're talking? Lots of ums and uhs, and do you stammer when you're going? Do you mumble? Do you are you appropriate in your terminology? Can you do good storytelling? Are you good at explaining things? Does your voice? Sound confident. Do you use a lot of up speak when it sounds like you're asking questions and your voice goes up at the ends of all your phrases and sentences, which not only is really annoying for a lot of people, but makes you sound insecure, like you're asking, Is it okay?
Am I right? Do you know what I mean? That's all that undermines your authority. And then the Gravitas piece, as they like to define it, is things like, can you speak truth to power? Will you go to bat for your people? Will you defend your school your district, your population? Will you fight for the [00:34:00] resources that you need?
If you. make a statement and you say, look, if this doesn't happen, here's the consequence. And then X happens. Do you follow through or do you cave? Are you willing to do your words have teeth? Will you stand behind them? Are you willing to speak truth to power? Are you willing to be unpopular to do what's right?
There's all of those components together create a three dimensional picture of what leadership presence is. And it, all of those pieces really do matter. They're going to be colored differently depending again on who's your audience, what do they need, are you speaking at a faculty meeting of people who've known you for 10 years, or are you speaking at a conference where this is your first time in front of this completely new audience?
Well, you might dress a little differently, you might tell different stories, you might, and yet some things will be consistent. The more ums you use, The less authoritative you're going to sound, period. So putting together those pieces is all figuring [00:35:00] out how do I project the leadership presence that I need these people to be able to see in me, to have the trust in me that I want them to have, and we all move forward together.
Yeah, I mean to tie them all together by unpacking a common figure of speech, right? When you say, I know where this person stands, right? You know, if you take that literally, it's You your presence. I know where you are. I can see you. I that's in front of me. And the same thing when you are communicative, people understand what your point of view is, what your perspective is, what your values are what you support and that you're there.
You're claiming that space and not leaving a vacuum where there's a lot of. Confusion, misunderstanding. What are we working on? Where are we going toward? You know, what are the ulterior motives of our leadership? Since they're not saying [00:36:00] anything, they must, there must be something going on that we don't know about, right?
And saying that people can, People can deal with not always agreeing with everything, and somebody will always disagree or have a different opinion, but they can respect, okay, I understand why this is, I understand the logic behind this, the values underpinning it, etc. And now I know how to work within that, I know how to make decisions in my work that are aligned to that or that are strategic according to But if I don't know that, then I'm just guessing or I'm uncertain or uncomfortable or anxious.
And that's not a dynamic that leaders really want to create. Excellent. So I wanted to give you a chance. You have the three C's of vocal executive presence. One of the, and I'll let you kind of Speak to them together in whichever way you think makes the most sense [00:37:00] for the listeners. If you want to take it one by one or but I think it's a good thing that, that our listeners will be able to hold on to.
We'll of course put them in the show notes as well. But kind of speak to that because these are helpful reminders of how to establish presence via communication.
Sure. And we've really covered a lot of the fundamentals. So one of the, I think the three C's are a nice, easy way to wrap them all up together in a nice little digestible triplet. So the three C's are number one, to command the room, number two, to connect with the audience and number three, to close the deal.
Now let's define those just so that there isn't a misinterpretation of some of that, some of those terms. So commanding the room, there's a difference. between commanding respect and attention and demanding respect and attention. If you have to get up there and demand that people pay attention and listen to you, good luck.
They never will. They might be quiet because they [00:38:00] have to, but they will not respect you. But when something in the way that you talk, when we, everything we discussed before is your voice authoritative as opposed to having lots of up speak where he doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about.
If you are Your body language is strong. You are making eye contact with people. You're speaking in ways that resonate with them and that they can appreciate. You seem confident in how you look, how you sound, how you behave. There's something in you that just compels them. Connecting with the audience is, on some level, establishing a mutual understanding that you get me, and I get you. Maybe we come from totally different worlds, but there's this one point of connection, and that's what we're going to focus on today. And then closing the deal is, means getting to yes. It doesn't necessarily mean selling something or signing on the dotted line.
It just means that we're going to move the needle forward together because we've come to an agreement on whatever the next step is. Maybe it's, Hey, you know what, [00:39:00] everybody, it's getting a little heated in here. How about we take a 15 minute break and then come back or let's go get lunch. And then with fuller bellies and lower adrenaline surges and whatever else Let's resume the discussion then.
Everybody agrees, we move forward. It's just little by little, agreement by agreement. And those, that's closing the deal one step at a time. So the that's really the key. If you can do those three things, to me, that's what creates the standing reputation of having a leadership presence, of being a leader, someone who can consistently do that.
Yeah. And then as is a consistent theme here, I mean, who better to demonstrate commanding versus demanding than a teacher, right? And especially if you're teaching younger children and understanding that You have to make it interesting. You have to give them a reason to pay attention.
It can't just be Okay, we're aiming [00:40:00] for compliance here because ultimately that's not really leading too much And we have to really think about how do I make this worth their while and make it something that people if they give their attention to it they'll get an ROI on that, right?
Whether that's learning outcomes, whether that's professional outcomes or whatever it is, or whether that's podcast listeners, right? What's you can't make anybody listen they, they choose to if they think it's worth it.
Yes.
Excellent. Well, Laura, we're getting close to the end of our conversation here.
I wanted to ask one final question. I guess it's for the listener who is out there and they're interested in this and they are maybe reflecting on how they've been going about it. What is, what would be your advice for taking that step outside of one's comfort zone and saying, look, This might not be the way I've been perceiving myself or it's something that I've been [00:41:00] hesitant to do in whatever their role, right, whether I currently have a title that says leader or whatever my title is that I can certainly be a leader and be influential in my role.
How do I push myself to go a place where it's uncomfortable and to really try to step into this? Yeah,
going to give everyone out there a an assignment, a challenge, if you will, that is this exactly the same thing that I give to my corporate clients that I gave to my teacher trainees when I was in the university, because it's, there is no better way to get clear on what you're doing that is and is not effective.
And that is to do a short. self video recording. Everybody's got camera cameras nowadays on their phones, so it's not about equipment anymore. Post your prop up your phone someplace. Preferably where the kids don't see it so they don't get all distracted and whatever else. But you know, if we're talking to administrators or somebody, maybe next time [00:42:00] you're on a Zoom call with somebody.
Or the next time you're running a faculty meeting or a department meeting of some sort. Just prop your phone up. and hit record just to see how you open the meeting. You don't even have to watch the whole thing. Watch the first couple of minutes, three minutes, five minutes, and just say, if I didn't know that person from Adam or from Eve, What would be my first impression? It is mind blowing what you will see and hear yourself do. It's funny, I haven't thought about this in years, but I had when I was teaching master's degree students at the university, I had them do this assignment and I had one student who I, she was fabulous, loved her to pieces she was super passionate about the kids, a real advocate, a real go getter, and She, I had them do this assignment and when they came to class the next week I walked in and she had her head in her hands in, at the big communal desk, the table that we had.
I said, what's wrong? And she goes, the assignment, [00:43:00] I watched myself and I know what I espouse as far as philosophy of teaching and inclusivity and all this kind of stuff. And I know what I was trying to do in the class. But I heard myself say these things, and I watched myself making these gestures, and she goes, I am so mortified that I was doing those things.
I was trying to convey X, but it came through as Y, and it was horrifying to think That's how my students see me. And so she's like, I can't get it out of my head. And I just started to laugh and she goes, I thought you'd appreciate that. So, but you know, it's, it was painful for her in the moment, but oh my gosh, did it just totally throw the switch and send her in 90 degrees in a different direction to where she was so much more clear, confident, effective as a teacher, because she understood the truth of what she was doing and where it didn't align with her intentions.
And then [00:44:00] that. Give us the space to close that gap, realign, and help her be more successful moving forward. So allow me to challenge everyone out there, please record just a couple of minutes, Zoom meeting, live staff meeting, wherever it is, record yourself, two minutes, and just watch and see what you notice.
Does that person have leadership presence, gut level, yes or no, and why?
it's painful, but helpful. If it's not painful, good for you. But but when you first start, it's like, Oh, I can't, Oh, I can't listen to this voice or I can't believe what I'm looking at, but but it really helps to improve it, to understand that this is what's happening. This is the. The image I wanna project, right?
This is the way I wanna be perceived as a leader and as a communicator. Listeners, you can learn more@lauracola.com and speaking to influence.com. Any anything else they should check out?
feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm always looking forward to connecting with people. And of [00:45:00] course, let me know if you do reach out to connect there, that of course you listened to my interview here with Ross on the Authority podcast. I always connect with people when I know where the connection is coming from.
Excellent. Well, we will put the links below to those websites, to the LinkedIn page. And you can also find the book wherever you get your books. If you if you have certain site that you go to, just look for speaking to influence
also actually, I have a newsletter, forgive me for interrupting, if people want to either on LinkedIn, there is a newsletter that comes out each week, or on my website, when you go to the homepage, rossjustgave, laurasicola. com. At the bottom, you can subscribe. It just comes out once a week, but there's lots of resources.
There's lots of tips. There are lots of podcast opportunities. Of course, we'll mention this one there as well. But it's a very easy way to just keep abreast. of things to keep you sharp at the top of your game, and of course having the most influence possible.
Excellent. Well, listeners, yeah, check all that out. A lot of good [00:46:00] resources there. We'll put the links below to make it really easy for you to find everything. So, something here for everyone listening. Please check that out. Please also do subscribe to the Authority if you have not already. We've got more interviews coming your way.
We'll have more interviews as part of this series, a lot more to come. Insights around speaking, communicating, establishing your influence and using that on multiple channels as well. So a lot of things there that certainly are relevant to everyone in leadership or everyone who just wants to be a leader.
So a lot there. Also, please do visit bpodcast. network to learn about all of our shows. If you like this show, there's a lot of others there that will be good for you. So check that out. Laura, thanks again for being here.
Always a pleasure, Ross.
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