A colleague told me a truly horrific story of an introverted CEO being forced on to the management conference stage with a leather jacket slung over his shoulder to the va va voom of 'Eye of the Tiger' at 90 decibels.
A salutary reminder that matching the appropriate comms style to a leader's personality is critical or can misfire horribly. Who cares what the guy has to say when he's being held up to ridicule? There is a richness in our individual personalities but you need to work with and not against it when comms planning, I once invited a child-psychologist-turned-executive-coach to share his views with a group of internal comms folk. The subject taxing us at the time was the issue of 'visible leadership'. I don't like the phrase but we had a giant employee survey to thank for quipping it and opening it up to misinterpretation. In essence, it was the age old challenge of how we could work with all types of leader to ensure people could see, hear and talk with them more. This is where our behavioural expert stepped in to explain how our personalities are largely formed in early childhood. Imagine, he said, you are looking at a school playground. You can probably see at a glance all the different characters at play - there's the boy who won't share his toys, the girl who is singing and dancing her way to the centre of attention, someone tussling over the Wendy House, a child trying to get others to join in and, somewhere, there is bound to be a tiny tot in an angry huff! Sure, you can be coached and trained to a certain extent, but your personality traits largely remain intact as you turn into a 'grown up' business person. Now be honest - who doesn't see themselves or their colleagues in this story? Over to the wonderful Joyce Grenfell:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/oom2EPuNPv8
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