Leadership Communication: How to Rocket up the Corporate Ladder
Ed Darling
6 min read
What you’ll learn:
- How to build your professional confidence
- Becoming more visible and valuable as a leader.
- Improving your networking and communication skills.
Leadership communication.
Leadership communication is a prized skill in today’s corporate boardrooms and businesses.
A survey of more than 600 employers in 2014 found that among the top skills recruiters look for, “oral communication” was number one and “presentation skills” number four.
That doesn’t mean you have to be an extrovert delivering motivational monologues. But if you want to scale the dizzying heights of the corporate ladder, you’ll need to be capable of expressing your ideas with confidence.
This is where many professionals get stuck.
If you aren’t experienced at speaking in public, it’s easy to get side-lined by those who are more outgoing.
But you don’t have to stay on the side-lines while others get ahead. Because no matter how basic your public speaking is right now, leadership communication is a skill that anyone can master.
Ready to propel yourself up the corporate ladder?
Build your professional confidence.
Getting fit in the gym, buying pair of shows, or having a new haircut – plenty of things can help to boost your confidence.
But while many things put a temporary pep in your step, only a few truly transform your inner confidence.
Public Speaking is one of those few.
It’s a linch-pin that unlocks new levels of self-belief in all kinds of social situations.
If you want to develop leadership communication skills, the first step is to overcome and public speaking fears you may have. By doing so, you earn a deep sense of self-trust and inner confidence. When that happens, you begin to show up differently.
Whether that’s:
- Speaking up more confidently in meetings.
- Offering to present to your senior leaders.
- Succesfully pitching to new new clients.
Alongside that, you may start walking taller, speaking louder, and carrying yourself with a greater sense of composure.
None of this goes unnoticed for long.
Developing leadership communication begins with speaking up, overcoming your fears, and building your professional confidence.
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Become more visible in your field.
Opportunities to speak are everywhere.
But most people avoid them because they focus on the risk of things going badly.
If you want to progress up the corporate ladder, you must focus on the reward.
When was the last time you volunteered to:
- Deliver a group presentation?
- Speak at a conference or event?
- Guest on a panel or podcast?
The reward of doing these things is that you become more visible. Visible to your seniors, to other companies, and to potential customers.
Visibility makes you valuable.
Someone who is willing to stand up and share their views is automatically valued in the minds of people watching.
So a core element in develop leadership communication, is simply building the habit of saying “yes” to these opportunities. The more you put yourself out there, the more visible and valuable you become.
Demonstrate your leadership potential.
Leadership communication means being equipped to:
- Articulate a compelling vision.
- Answer difficult questions.
- Provide constructive feedback.
- Inspire our confidence.
Now imagine someone trying to achieve that, while mumbling their words, fidgeting their hands, and keeping their eyes fixed on their toes the entire time.
It feels incongruent doesn’t it?
They’d be asking you to trust in their leadership, while seemingly not trusting themselves.
If you want to demonstrate effective leadership communication skills, you must become a more competent public speaker.
The majority of professionals see communication skills as a “nice to have”. However, if you want to rocket up that corporate ladder, you need to see them as a “must”.
That starts with mastering the basics of effective communication, and then investing time and energy into becoming the best speaker you can be.
Leadership communication isn’t something you can half-do. If you want to demonstrate your potential, it’s time to go all in on building those core skills.
Gain corporate credibility.
Writing a book, building a CV, fine-tuning your LinkedIn profile – there are many ways to demonstrate your expertise to others.
But one of the best ways to share your expertise at scale is by speaking to an audience.
You can do things like:
- Presenting a project report to your company.
- Speaking about your subject-matter at a conference.
- Running an educational webinar about your business.
It’s one thing to write about how great you are, or share a social media post about your latest achievement. But you gain far more credibility by sharing your expertise through the spoken word.
There’s nothing more compelling than watching someone share their stories, insights and experience in real-time.
With technology, you can then leverage a single speech or presentation to be viewed by hundreds, thousands (or even millions) of people.
One of the quickest ways to develop leadership communication is to start speaking on your areas of expertise. That might mean sharing a video to social media today, but could lead to speaking from the stage tomorrow.
Enhance your professional networking skills.
When it comes to networking, there is a spectrum of behaviours.
Most people find themselves on either extreme:
- Freezing up with shyness and sticking desperately with the people you already know.
- Attempting to force your business card on every person in the room, without making a real connection with any of them.
If you want to embody a person with leadership communication, it means properly listening to others, hearing what they say, and responding thoughtfully.
Read this article for more in-depth advice to nail your next networking event.
It also means being able to deliver a compelling pitch that intrigues people to find out more about what you do.
Strong communicators are able to enjoy the process of meeting, listening and engaging new people in their network. Rather than chasing things, they find opportunities flowing towards them.
This is one the best shortcuts up the corporate ladder.
Building your leadership commuication skills.
How many problems are caused by poor communication skills?
Nevermind in the professional world, let’s start at home:
- The unnecessary arguments with your better half.
- Misunderstandings with family members.
- Even misbehaving children.
All directly linked to a breakdown in communication.
Learning to speak in public changes your level of self-awareness when communicating.
You become more aware of what you’re saying, how you’re saying it, and how the person opposite you is actually hearing it.
With awareness comes the ability to adapt, and to influence.
These skills aren’t just for presenting to a group, they can be deployed in any number of circumstances to achieve a better outcome:
- Negotiating a better agreement with suppliers.
- Calming down a heated discussion.
- Articulating a problem to get a quicker solution.
The higher you climb up the ladder, the more responsibility you take on.
With that comes more difficult conversations, tricky negotiations, and circumstances which demand the best of your abilities.
Leadership communication allows you to build these skills from the ground up and be ready when opportunity strikes.
Corporate leadership and communication skills.
If you want to guarantee the career progression you deserve, developing your leadership communication skills is vital.
The ROI is hard to beat.
From building confidence, proving your leadership potential, demonstrating your expertise, improving your networking, and developing effective communication skills.
Becoming a confident leader and speaker allows you to side-step the office politics and jump onto the fast-lane to corporate leadership.
If you want to propel yourself up the corporate ladder (or any ladder!) learn to speak with confidence, with credibility – and ideally, with some charisma too.