Credibility, confidence, and trustworthiness  are all compromised without communication skills that rock!

Dear executive leader and rising star,

I hope that I am not too bold identifying who you are or who you want to become.  I know from experience that you are already doing well at your job and your colleagues are impressed with who you are.  You've probably been told that you hold a lot of promise at the organization and in your future.  

You are tickled pink at this recognition and you desperately want to continue to improve and become even better.  You are motivated to be the best version of YOU.  You know that when you become even better, you will reach your goals even faster.  And you've got a lot of goals because your aspirations are high!  You want to move up in your job to senior level positions.  You want to be recognized for your contributions.  You want to maximize your income. You were born to influence other people and to make a big difference in the world around you.

If you want to achieve your highest aspirations, you must master your communication skills!

So what's holding you back?

Don't worry....most people are and getting over it is possible!  But avoiding public speaking is a real career stopper.  Higher level positions require communicating to the public, to even more senior executives, to the board and many others.  Presenting your ideas, selling a concept, motivating colleagues are essential tasks of the senior level executive.  

Diane was one of those people who nearly became immobilized by the thought of speaking to higher level colleagues. She was incredibly nervous and it showed in her speech, language and voice.  She spoke really fast and consequently, was hard to understand and sounded bored and disinterested.  But she just wanted to get done as fast as possible. She couldn't relax so her voice was weak, shaky and shrill sounding.  She didn't communicate with authority and credibility and yet she was a strong executive with a lot of vision, insight and great ideas.  She wasn't successfully able to communicate her vision, however, because she was terrified of speaking up in front of people. 

Maybe you already recognize that you have a problem but you don't know what it is?  Here are some of the most common issues:

1. Not relating well to colleagues--this usually means a communication problem.
2. Not sounding professional or credible--most likely you have distractions in your speech or voice.
3. Not crafting messages well--frequently going down rabbit holes , saying too much, giving too many details, over-complicating the topic or subject.
   

Let's talk about each of these and what can be done

There are many communication styles that send the wrong message to the people around you and consequently prevent strong relationships.

Jeremy shoved people away with his condescending style.  He interrupted, didn't listen to other peoples' opinions and invalidated their ideas by projecting his own ideas.

Andrew dropped swear words throughout his presentation which offended many people in his audience (and decreased his credibility).

Jean became openly impatient and exasperated when she was frustrated which interfered with morale of her entire department.

We all feel emotions and sometimes it's hard not to show them.  But these problems affected the relationships that each person had with their peers and colleagues.  Controlling your emotions even when you are angry, nervous, or disappointed or even when you feel you know better about an idea will go a long ways to a solid, productive professional relationship.