Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive

coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you want

to be perceived.

I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach,

and today we're talking about messaging during hard times.

Theresa led a global team that senior leaders at headquarters times. be decimated, but Theresa fought valiantly for her team and she did pretty well too, her team only

lost two members.

But when I saw her, she was anything but happy.

The team's next conference call was two days away and she was dreading it.

What do I tell him this time? She said.

My people are hungry for good information.

They feel remote and disconnected in the best of times.

But now they really need to know what's been happening and what's about to happen.

I think it's up to me to give it to them, but I'm not sure I'm up to it.

Plus, I have the feeling they're pissed off already and anything I say is going to piss him off more.

I asked if I could use her computer.

When she gave me her chair, I pulled up an audio archive of Franklin Roosevelt's first

fireside chat, delivered one week after his inauguration in 1933, Roosevelt's

short speech is plain and unadorned. Humorist Will Rogers later said the President took, quote,

such a dry subject as banking and made everyone understand it,

even the bankers, end quote.

Roosevelt delivered his speech, which was only later called a fireside chat, at the end of an eight-day

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