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The Passionate Speaker
"Leaders build bridges. . . The challenge for leaders is to build a cohesive community within and outside the organization, to invest in relationships, and to communicate a vision that speaks to a richly diverse workforce and marketplace."
– Frances Hesselbein - from A Star to Steer ByA Newsletter for Speakers By Michael Landrum May, 2004 – Number 62 Vision + Speech = Leadership Whether you're leading a company or just leading your life, a vision of where you're going and who you're becoming is essential. That's what makes the difference between being drawn toward something you want to achieve and being driven by the whips and stings of fears, obligations, restrictions and obstacles. In 1977, with the help of a good friend, I found a house in the woods, 50 miles north of New York City. It was a place I had been longing for – and envisioning, for years. At first the place didn't look like much – just a homely, little cement-block structure, but I saw, in my mind's eye, how it would become beautiful and cozy, filled with light, art and music. I'd expand the kitchen, add skylights and a sun porch, landscape, dig a pond. This house would attract a beautiful, sensitive, intelligent woman who would want to share it and make a family with me. We would garden, cook, make art, raise a child and love each other here. Twenty-seven years later, my vision has been realized, with bonuses. We who speak must also remember to carry a vision to our audiences if we expect to be seen as leaders. This is often overlooked by speakers who just want to stick to the facts; they focus on abstractions, concepts and statistics and turn a leadership opportunity into a reporting job. Vision leads to understanding and understanding leads to agreement, commitment and progress. The ability to communicate a vision of the future is an essential ingredient in the recipe of successful leadership. The leader is the one who carries the compass; who most clearly sees the destination; who has the vision to mark out the path. In David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize winning biography of John Adams, he describes a man with a passionate vision. Adams was consumed by the idea that the United States could become a great and powerful nation, independent of Britain or any other European country. He became the leading voice in the Continental Congress that declared independence, governed the colonies in pursuit of the Revolutionary war and later wrote the constitution of the United States. McCullough gives us a fine sense of his style and manner as a speaker, animated by his vision: "Rarely did he prepare his remarks in advance other than in his mind, so that once on his feet he could speak from what he knew and what he strongly felt. . . The art of persuasion, he held, depended mainly on a marshaling of facts, clarity, conviction and the ability to think on one's feet. True eloquence consisted of truth and "rapid reason." . . . He would stand at his place, back straight, walking stick in hand, at times letting the stick slip between thumb and forefinger to make a quick tap on the floor, as if to punctuate a point. . . "We shall be driven to the necessity of declaring ourselves independent and we ought now to be employed in preparing a plan for confederation of the colonies, [here might come the sharp tap of the stick] and treaties to be proposed to foreign powers [tap] . . . together with a declaration of independence [tap]. . . ." We say we 'lead' our lives and that's true. We control our destiny, choose our path, make the decisions that determine whether we falter and fail, or rise and fly. The principles of good leadership apply to the individual life as well as to teams, companies and nations; the differences are in scale and complexity, nothing more. We can all benefit from a study of leadership. How can you develop vision? Start with what you desire and amplify it in your imagination. Daydream. Fantasize about it. You'll find that the vision will feed the desire and the desire will expand the vision. As Carl Jung said "Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks within, awakens." Once you have your vision, tell someone about it. A vision unshared is an impotent fantasy. The act of telling your desire to others forces you to codify it, to make it solid and tangible to the wider imagination. It is the first step in leadership. Stand up before a group of people who face a task together. Tell them how you would like to see that task accomplished and remember this inscription from a church in Sussex, England, written in 1730: "A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. A vision with a task is the hope of the world." The first task of the leader, the visionary, is to speak that vision out into the world where it can gather energy. Even on the more modest plane of preparing a speech for the shareholders, or the local Rotary Club, or your daughter's second grade class, you still need a vision to impart. If you wish to engage your audience, paint a vivid picture on the screen of their imagination. This is the time-honored process by which all great ideas, movements, business endeavors, nations and religions have manifested themselves. Every speaker is a leader of the imagination; and the human imagination must have a seeable, understandable vision on which to focus. The link between speaking and envisioning is strong and natural. Bill Lane, who was Jack Welch's speechwriter for twenty three years at General Electric, has said that Welch used his speaking opportunities to create policy and set strategy for the company. Often they would hone and refine a speech through dozens of rewrites until Welch was sure that his message was clear and the course he wanted to follow would be apparent to all his listeners - employees, executives, board members and public. Like all great leaders, Jack Welch became the living embodiment of his organization, his speeches set the agenda for GE, defined their goals and articulated their vision. Speaking became a primary tool of leadership for him. A Thought to Ponder "The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both." - Zen Buddhist Text ©2001-2003 Michael F. Landrum |
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