Author: Kevin Murray
Publisher: Kogan Page
Reviewer: Jon Priest, CEO, SPA Future Thinking
Don’t judge a book by its cover; or its title for that matter. This impressive text is not ostensibly about leadership or language at all, but about communication. NLP teaches us that eighty per cent of communication is non-verbal, so what Kevin Murray has done here is all the more impressive.
Based on 75 in-depth interviews with some of the world’s best known business leaders (speaking as a professional market researcher that is some impressive feat in itself) we have both a reminder and a practitioner’s guide on the importance of communicating – internally with fellow directors, management, staff and externally – in business.
The book’s contributors ranked the ability to communicate as equally vital as strategy-setting and knowledge curatorship. But being a hidden skill, we all too often forget its importance.
The book dismisses old school command and control style communication leadership with ‘mission control’ where directors are free to move laterally and flexibly so long as the core objective is met.
We are reminded of the importance of transparency, authenticity and the desire for the leader to ‘be themselves first and foremost’ and to operate within a prescribed framework of values. You don’t have to be charismatic or a great orator (these are myths) but you do need a refresher on the basics and, when speaking publicly, proper preparation combined with platform media training.
There are also lots of tricks for delivering your messages – use stories, have a point of view and so forth but the number one tenet of The Language of Leaders is an ability to listen.
Tellingly, nearly all the subjects interviewed felt they had to really learn to listen properly and that for most, this was still a work in progress The book’s insight is supported by their experiences and anecdotes. Taken as a collective, Murray has provided an important reminder of the value of communication in business to meet goals and to set agendas by putting the audience, rather than the communicator, centre stage at all times and so to carry the audience along.
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