The following blog post was written three years ago, at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the lessons for leaders, in a world which becomes increasingly uncertain in the face of economic stressors, new technology, and other forces, are timeless:
These are trying times to say the least. When the future is uncertain, what we say as leaders is under greater scrutiny, and words are more closely tracked.
For the last couple of weeks, I have been looking for examples of solid leadership. From the governor of my own state taking swift and decisive action to flatten the curve, to musicians and TV hosts offering entertainment from their own homes, they are abundant!
To me, that is leadership in a nutshell: Giving your people - your audience - what they need. Jack Welch said it best in his famous quote: Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. And in this difficult time, we are all ensuring that we grow together.
Have the late night shows produced from home by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and others been a bit strange and unconventional? Maybe. I found them to be uniquely entertaining in a way that just can’t be captured with a traditional studio setting or format.
Personally, I have been encouraged by the number of thought leaders who I have contacted for the first time. They have been so generous with their time and expertise. We had never met before, but when you approach them with genuine curiosity and good intentions, you won’t believe who you can get on the phone!
Well, my friends, I think we’re witnessing an extraordinary moment. Everyone has become a leader in their own way, from their homes! Much of what I have seen in the last couple of weeks has been about growing others, in ways big and small.
Here’s what I believe: things will likely get much worse before they get better. But they will get better. They must. And when we get back to “normal”, or at least a new normal, I don’t want people to lose their leadership spirit, especially when it comes to how they communicate.
The good news is that you have always had the ability to inject leadership into your communications, no matter the format, the former the message.
Here’s how you make sure it stays in your grasp for the long run:
Know your audience, so you can anticipate their needs
It’s so simple on the surface, but it takes work. Still, it makes or breaks a presentation.
The biggest criticisms of COVID-19 response I’ve read on LinkedIn and heard in conversation are twofold:
(a) Companies are expressing concern about the virus, but most don’t have an aim beyond letting customers know that they’re still operating.
(b) Any value that is added is not tailored - or tailored enough - to the customer or the moment in which we’re living.
Avoiding these two pitfalls are also essential for delivering great speeches. From the moment you start speaking, audiences are asking themselves why and how your content is important to them. Make sure they can put it together right away, or at least make sure they’re willing to come along on your journey.
2. Be empathetic
Of all the marketing messages I’ve seen throughout this campaign, the best strike the balance between understanding what we’re all experiencing and offering a way forward.
No one can pretend like nothing’s happening, but we also must respect that, in the worst situations, there is loss of human life. We must halt our lives to a degree, but we also need to get things done so that we can meet our individual moments when “normal life” returns.
How do we maintain that balance, and how does this apply to speechwriting? That mostly depends on (again) knowing your audience, but it also has a lot to do with how you present your own struggles. People - and audiences - learn from failures, not successes, even if they’re not their own.
3. Communicate with goals, yet speak without expectations
Whenever I begin work with clients, one of my first questions is “What are your goals?”. Having a vision of where you’re going is essential, and in speeches and presentations, expectations can be set, generally speaking, for how the audience will respond.
However, in situations like the one we face now, this becomes more difficult to calibrate. A talk with your employees, for example, should aim to assuage their fears about potential layoffs and the broader economy, but you cannot anticipate how they will receive it and apply it to their lives. You can’t expect that they’ll have exactly the same perspective.
Therefore, it’s imperative that your message strikes a balance: authentic to you, your voice and your goals, but accessible enough so that everyone in your audience can get something from it. A tough task, indeed, but achievable if you embrace the process.
This is, depending on who you are, an uncomfortable moment at best, and life-altering at worst. What we say and how we treat one another matters now more than ever. Respect your message, and respect your audience.