The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 38: Aug/Sept 2018 | Page 17

BUSINESS ADVICE THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUCCESSFUL LEADERS What is crucial for success in business? What made England’s national football team manager Gareth Southgate successful? How does a publisher lead a magazine like The Business Exchange and her team to a 5-year milestone success? Is it money? Skill? Having a great idea for new technology or just plain luck? We work with many leaders juggling huge financial responsibilities and a large span of control and public reputations to manage too - here in the UK, but also much further afield. Psychological research and our experience of assessing and assisting such senior leaders to further their leadership development points to the following crucial characteristics of successful leaders: Leaders who are effective are able to inspire their people: intellectually and emotionally. These leaders are only able to do this because they are trusted by their followers. They tend to be credible, confident and trustworthy. Trust, in short, only exists if the leader has sufficient soon the competition unexpectedly appears from left-field to replace the market with a service that was until then misunderstood or underestimated. Leaders and leadership teams need to constantly reinvent themselves in order to remain ahead of the game – just like businesses need to. Finally, these brilliant leaders create a culture of reflexivity, of learning – from failures and successes. Healthy teams are the product of deliberate effort to create and maintain them. Their members complement each other and their individual strengths and limitations, linked to their personalities, are well-known: they are realistically assessed. Emotional stability, conscientiousness, openness to new experiences, extroversion, agreeableness… The level to which these aspects are found in leaders influences how they lead. And how successful they are likely to be. The need for successful organisations to have effective leadership is greater than ever. The work of business psychologists is essential to enable such leadership. “Healthy teams are the product of deliberate effort to create and maintain them” competence, cares enough, and shows consistency and courage. These leaders not only inspire: they focus the work of the organisation in the right direction. This relates to such aspects as discipline, prioritisation, conscientiousness, and, as Martina Navratilova said: “Always keeping your eye on the ball”. These leaders are only successful because they then also enable their people do to a good job; their people are given ownership and resources to perform, also avoiding micromanagement. Where focus is about what people need to do, enablement makes it possible. Closely linked is how performance and behaviours are managed, reinforced and rewarded. Strong leaders are good at sensemaking: they are able to make sense of what is happening out there. This is an aspect of a strategic leadership mindset. Such leaders are able to detect that yesterday’s plan will be obsolete when Contact People Business Psychology Ltd. ® to get to know more about the leadership in your organisation and how to make that leadership even more successful. www.peoplebusinesspsychology.com @peepbizpsych [email protected] 02034 783253 Dread that moment? Dreading the moment when you get up to speak? Here’s how to make that presentation perfect Presenting and public speaking often go hand in hand with running a business. Everyone from SME business owners and directors, to department heads, to the IT team may be called upon to deliver a talk. According to Swindon public speaking and presentation trainer Chris Dawes, your level of presenting skills can be the differentiator between your business over a competitor’s. But all too often, a talk fails to hit the mark and the speaker is left feeling he or she could have done better. Chris is a professional motorsports commentator, voice over artist and public speaker, with a background in sales. His company, Open Dawes Training, offers CPD accredited one-to-one and group training. “Whenever you have to give a talk you should remember there are three versions,” says Chris. “There is the talk you intend to give, the talk you actually give and the talk that you wish you had given. And we work with people to make sure there’s not a fourth: the talk you wish you hadn’t given! “Our training is comprehensive and covers everything from preparing and coping with nerves, to delivery on the day and post talk analysis. We aren’t trying to turn our clients into different people, we are trying to help them be a better version of themselves – them plus 10% - so that on the day they deliver a fantastic talk and leave the audience wanting more. “But even with a few simple steps, everybody can make improvements to their public speaking, whether that is for a formal presentation or just talking at a meeting.” Top tips for delivering that killer presentation Before the event: • Prepare but don’t learn lines. Aim to have some bullet points that you can refer to (on cards, or a tablet), make sure you have a really memorable opening, maybe start with “Once upon a time …” or a fact or anecdote that makes the audience sit up and take notice. Never deliver a speech verbatim. • Ma ke sure you are familiar with the venue – what is the lighting like, the acoustics, do they have the relevant IT? • Pack carefully. Remember your laptop, leads, spare leads – belt and braces so you are prepared for all eventualities. During your talk: • Slow down, pause, take deep breaths. What to you may seem like a long pause won’t do so to the audience, and this will also help you to calm your nerves. Keep your brain one step ahead of your mouth and not the other way around; if you talk too fast, that’s when you race on and forget what you are saying, mid-flow • Nerves are part and parcel of public speaking. It is the fight or flight reaction that kicks in, but use nerves to your advantage • Treat it as a conversation not a lecture and if you forget some bits, or things go out of order don’t worry: only you will know, the audience won’t At the end: • Provide a recap • Don’t finish with questions. After a Q&A bring your audience back up to peak interest by giving them the one thing you really want them to remember. Say last what you want remembered most • Leave the audience wanting more. Including finishing ahead of schedule, not going on for longer. Chris says: “One tip I give all clients is not to be too narcissistic. The presentation isn’t about us, it’s about our audience and what we want to tell them and what we want them to learn or take away. If you can think more about them and less about yourself, that will go a long way towards helping you deliver a really good presentation, and you suddenly realise that you haven’t had time to think about your own apprehension.” For help, advice and training in public speaking get in touch with Chris and his team at www.opendawestraining.co.uk email [email protected] 01793 238259 THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2018 17