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 speaking for yourself. Karen's mandate from her division president was to be more executive.

As a natural relationship builder, Karen originally thought being more executive meant holding

people more accountable and being more efficient with her time.

But data collected from her peers and direct reports revealed something quite surprising.

They all had widely divergent experiences of her. No one really knew who Karen was or understood

her vision for the department. Observing Karen in action, I saw that she was high in empathy and was able to accurately reflect what she

heard. This made her very likable. However, it did not make her executive. To do that, we worked on a skill I call Speak for Yourself. As a leader, there are three

voices you can use, the I voice, the we voice, and the you voice. Each is valuable at the right time, but all too

often the you and we voices are used inappropriately. When they are, they cause confusion, emotional distance, and frequently make

the leader sound as if she's ducking responsibility. That's what Karen had been doing, and

it was a major factor in the foggy picture people had of her.

The skill I worked on with Karen, speak for yourself, is at the core of the look and sound of

leadership.

It injects passion and clarity into your style. Here's a crash

course in how to develop it. First, learn to identify it. Here's what it

doesn't sound like, followed by what it does sound like.

We could really use more time in our staff meetings, don't you think?

That is not speaking for yourself.

Here's what that would sound like if you were speaking for yourself.

...