Who really is a thought leader?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A thought leader is a real expert, with a capital E. (On June 20, 2026 I blogged about Who is a pseudoexpert?) There are two posts by Nick Morgan at Public Words titled What’s a Thought Leader. Nick begins his first post on July 1, 2025 by stating:

 

“What’s a thought leader?  It’s someone who understands a particular sliver of knowledge as well or better than everyone else.  It’s someone who has added to the world’s awareness of the possibilities that exist for a group of people so that they see themselves in a new way.  It’s someone who understands how to apply one kind of expertise to a field where it hasn’t been applied before.

That knowledge is usually developed over a decade or more, and it comes from a genuine passion, a desire to break open some locked mystery box that has puzzled everyone up until now.”

Nick then said in his second post on July 15 that people are paid to speak for three reasons. One is that they are a celebrity. Another is that they have an important title. And the third is they have marketable expertise. The fourth paragraph of his second post says:

 

“To be able to join that coveted third category of speaker you have to become a thought leader first – a recognized expert in a category of knowledge.  Speaking is something you do once you’ve established that expertise.  You might have an academic title, you might teach, you might do research, you might invent a process, you might coach people to achieve extraordinary things, you might write a book about a compelling subject – all of these are ways to become recognized as a thought leader.  Once you’ve established that expertise, you can then start the next chapter of your thought leadership career.”

 

And in an article at Medium on January 23, 2021 by Mike Olson titled Thought follower he said:

 

“When someone claims that they themselves are a thought leader, I assume they’re really not, and also that they are a little bit of a dick.”

 

Similarly, I ended a post on July 10, 2014 titled Is the advice you’re getting about public speaking almost as ancient as a fossilized tribolite? by saying thought leader means that I thought I was a leader, but I’m not.

 

The paper plane was adapted from here at Wikimedia Commons.  

 

 

Why did a keynote speaker overestimate his research skills?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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There is an article by John Eades at Learnloft on June 25, 2026 titled Why Most Leaders Overestimate Their Presentation Skills which opens by stating a startling ‘statistic’ that: 

“Fear is real, and there are a couple of common things people fear.

A survey revealed that people’s two biggest fears are public speaking and death.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld landed a joke about the survey when he said, ‘Most people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.’

It’s funny because it’s true. Most people despise the idea of public speaking.”

John did such superficial research that he confused a joke with a 1973 survey where death actually was seventh. Both are shown above. And that misquote is a paraphrase of what Jerry said in 1993. Back on April 8, 2018 I blogged about Misquoting Jerry Seinfeld and inflating fear five times.

 

He also has a 9-minute YouTube video at The Leadership Lens on June 25, 2026 titled Most Leaders Think They’re Good Presenters. They’re Not. Both the article and video have some useful content:

 

“The Three Types of Presenters

 

Since leadership is more art than science, leaders can be introverted or extroverted. They are women and men. They are quiet and loud. However, after watching leaders across industries, most fall into one of three categories when presenting.

 

The Informer

The Informer knows their content cold. Their slides are detailed, their data is accurate, and their presentation is thorough. However, they confuse information transfer with communication. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, but it can be boring. The audience might even learn something. Their presentations are forgettable, not because they couldn’t be better or because their content is weak, but nothing makes it stick.  

 

The Rambler

The Rambler has real experience and genuine passion. When it lands, it’s magnetic. But without structure, the audience works too hard to follow. They leave inspired by the energy but unclear on the point. The Rambler’s biggest blind spot is thinking passion is enough. While it’s better than someone who doesn’t care, passion without structure is just noise with enthusiasm.

 

The Inspirer

The Inspirer knows their content and their audience. They don’t present at people, they present for them. They use story, tension, and intentional moments to connect ideas to emotions. They take chances by using authenticity to show their true self. The audience doesn’t just remember a few of the things they said – they remember how it made them feel.”

 

 

Joy is the most enjoyable path to learning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful 2024 book by David Novak titled How Leaders Learn: Master the habits of the world’s most successful people. Google Books has a preview of its first sixty pages and six chapters.

 

On page 143 David says that:

 

“Joy is our source of purpose, passion, mission – and the most enjoyable path to learning.

 

Of course, pursuing your joy requires that you know where to find it in your life and work. Not many people consider what makes them happiest, beyond things that aren’t necessarily within their control. When I wrote Take Charge of You with sports performance coach Jason Goldsmith, we tackled this question at the start. If you’re going to coach yourself to success, you need to know what you’re coaching yourself toward. We suggested people start by mining their experiences for joy blockers (we’re a bit better at remembering negatives) and then shift and search for their joy builders.

 

Try asking yourself this: What’s getting in the way of my joy? If you’re not sure, think back to some of your worst days, or a job that frustrated you or made you miserable or unfulfilled. What made it so difficult for you? Be as specific as possible. Did you want to be in a different role? Was there one specific thing that you were required to do that you dreaded doing? Was there a person or team you had to work with that brought you down?

 

I’m sure you can think of examples. We all hate our jobs sometimes. Even if you can think of examples, though, you may never have deeply reflected or logically analyzed why you were unhappy in a particular situation or environment.

 

I wish I could give a good example of this kind of reflection from my own life, but I’ve rarely felt that way. And I don’t think most active learners have much experience with it either, at least not for long. When active learners find themselves in a situation that’s too full of their joy blockers, they learn their way out of it or they learn their way around the blockers fast. They know if they don’t, they’ll stagnate. They also know that just because a job or situation doesn’t come preloaded with joy builders doesn’t mean it’s the wrong choice. It just means it’s up to them to find a way around the blockers.

 

….What are your joy builders? And how can you pursue them? Think about some of your best days or jobs – times when you felt especially purposeful, powerful, optimistic, and joyful. What was happening? What were you doing? Who were you doing it with? What specific things made you feel happy, excited, or energized? Try looking at your joy blocker examples and asking, What would have made me happier in those situations?”

 

My cartoon was assembled using a brick wall and stairs from OpenClipArt.  

 

 

A very good book on how to read a room

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a very good 2025 book by Dr. Mike Bechtle titled How to Read a Room: Navigate any situation, lead with confidence, and create an impact at work. His

chapter titles [and starting pages] are:

 

Introduction [9]

1] Why it matters [13]

 

Part 1 The Three Essentials (for Success) [21]

2] Master Your Mindset – You Can Do this [25]

3] Master the Process – It’s Worth the Effort [35]

4] Master Your Perceptions – You Can learn to See Others Accurately [45]

 

Part 2 How to Read a Room (for Confidence) [57]

5] Observe the Setting, Part 1 – Get the Big Picture [61]

6] Observe the Setting, Part 2 – Get the Small Picture [69]

7] Engage with People, Part 1 – Connect with Anyone [81]

8] Seven Engage with People, Part 2 – Converse with Anyone [91]

9] Plan Your Approach – Customize Your Strategy [103]

10] Execute Your Strategy – Work the Room [115]

 

Part 3 How to Lead a Room (for Influence) [125]

11] Leading the Room [129]

12] Leading by Influence in a Virtual Room [139]

13] Leading by Influence from the Front of the Room [151]

14] Leading by Influence through Written Communication [163]

 

Part 4 How to Serve a Room (for Impact) [173]

15] The Life-Changing Vision for Serving a Room [177]

16] The Challenge of Change [185]

17] Ten Steps Down into Greatness [193]

18] Legacy Time [205]

 

Conclusion [211]   

 

At the end of Part 2, on pages 120 to 122, he finally describes these twelve things (which you can find at Google Books):

 

How to Work the Room: The Basics

 

So, what are the most important things to consider when you’re ready to jump in and work the room? Here are some ingredients you can easily adapt to your own style and personality. They’re not a guaranteed approach but rather reflect commonsense things that humans respond to.

 

Smile. I mentioned this one earlier, but when we’re nervous, we usually don’t know how other people see us. The simplest way to show that you’re open for conversation is to smile whenever you make eye contact with another person. It’s a universal connecting point. Don’t be like the person avoiding eye contact on a bus so no one will choose the seat next to them.

 

Pay attention. When you’re talking to someone, give them direct eye contact to show you’re listening. Ask deeper questions to explore what they said. Don’t glance at the door or over their shoulder. If you’re ready to end the conversation, wrap it up graciously while still being completely attentive, then move on.

 

Encourage honesty. Avoid flattery like a pandemic, Share encouragement and things you admire and respect about them, but only if it’s completely honest, People sense flattery, and it builds a barrier between you.

 

Assume that others want to connect at a large event. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be there. It’s not risky; the worst thing that can happen is that they don’t engage, and you can move on. The best thing that can happen is that you’ll make a new friend.

 

Talk about them. Make them comfortable by focusing on what they’re saying instead of one-upping them with your own story. If they ask, respond. But in general, focus on them. They’ll remember you for it.

 

Say thanks. If there’s a genuine reason for gratitude, don’t just feel it – express it. Your casual, honest affirmation can make someone’s entire week because they probably didn’t know their words or actions had impact. Be the person who makes a difference.

 

Be generous. If there’s a resource you can provide or someone you can introduce them to, do it. If you connect them with things and people they can benefit from, you’ve gone up in value with them.

 

Focus on names. When you hear someone’s name, repeat it. If it’s a name that’s tough for you to pronounce, ask them for help. Names are important to people, and they’ll appreciate the effort to get them right. When meeting someone you haven’t seen for a long time, don’t assume they remember your name; reintroduce yourself.

 

Follow up. If you make a positive connection with someone and want to stay in touch, send an invitation via LinkedIn or another appropriate site as soon as possible after the event. Don’t accept their invitation to lunch or coffee under pressure if you know it’s not going to happen. Just say, ‘I don’t want to say yes now and not be able to make it happen. Let’s stay in touch on LinkedIn and go from there.’

 

Plan on learning something new. Each person you connect with has a unique experience and background. If you’re meeting them for the first time, it will all be new. If they are a colleague you work with every day, don’t assume you know everything about them. Make it your goal to dig deeper and glean something you don’t know. You’ll be enriched by it, and they’ll respect you for drawing it out.

 

Approach non-celebrities. It’s tempting to try to connect with the key players in a room, but the most meaningful connections often come from those who others aren’t approaching. They might be quieter on the outside but noisy on the inside – filled with rich experiences and ideas that haven’t been tapped.

 

Stay positive. Your attitude will set the tone for the conversation. Don’t get sucked into negative talk; divert them into a focus on the positive, optimistic side. You have the ability to influence the way people feel with your approach.

 

The cartoon showing a group of workers came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

In a BBC phone interview Donald Trump said “I trust almost nobody”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A video by BBC News on July 15, 2025 is titled Listen: ‘I trust almost nobody,’ Trump says when asked about Putin. If you trust nobody, then you will do your own research and will make bad decisions – like starting a trade war with tariffs on our neighbors, friends, and almost everyone else.

 

An article by Abbey Lewis at Harvard Business Impact is titled Good leadership? It all starts with trust. She says to be transparent, authentic, and reliable. And a second article by Col. Joe LeBoeuf and Lt. Col. Joe Doty at the Association of the United States Army on January 26, 2022 is titled When it comes to effective leadership, trust matters.

 

We are now just six months, or one eighth through Trump’s second term as president. The other seven-eighths likely will not make America great.  

 

 

Some memories of the Air Force Reserve - for Veterans Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In spring 1972 I enlisted in the Air Force Reserve to be a medic - before the Army could draft me. That meant I would first be on active duty, and then have reserve duty for six years: one weekend every month and two weeks during the summer. So, I spent the second half of that year on active duty. First was basic training in San Antonio. Early one morning the son of a Chief Master Sergeant (the highest enlisted rank) told me his father’s favorite joke:

 

“What is the difference between the Air Force and the Boy Scouts? The Boy Scouts have adult leadership.”

 

Then I had tech school in Wichita Falls. Finally, I had on the job training in a hospital near St. Louis.

 

In 1973 I started graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University. I also was working for one weekend a month as a reserve medic in the clinic out at the Greater Pittsburgh Airport that was part of the 911th Tactical Airlift Group. Most of my job was helping do the annual flight physicals. That meant I did tasks like eye tests, hearing tests, blood pressures, pulse rates, electrocardiograms, and even footprints.

 

From 1973 until 1975 on paper I belonged to a unit called the 911th Mobility Support Squadron. It is jargon meaning replacement troops, and had the acronym MSS. No vowel you add to make it pronounceable looks good. I vote for mess. You may remember the 1988 movie Bull Durham about a minor league baseball team. Kevin Costner plays the veteran catcher Crash Davis who just has been sent to the Durham Bulls to balance out a trade. When he walks into the team manager’s office the manager scowls and asks, Who are you? He introduces himself by replying that he is just the player to be named later. My reserve unit felt like that. We were only a minor league team. Morale always was near zero. If I did not have to be there, I would have preferred to be somewhere else.

 

In July 1975 I was told I had been reassigned. Now I belonged to the 758th Tactical Airlift Squadron. I walked up the hill to the base operations building to sign in with my new unit before going to work. When I went in, I noticed that everyone was smiling. They all were happy to be there. Their Admin sergeant welcomed me. His first five words were that: we are all professionals here.

 

Before I headed down the hill to work at the clinic, I needed to stop and use the bathroom. What I saw there amazed me. Inside the toilet stall door, under a clear plastic cover, was a sheet of paper listing exactly what each aircrewman (pilot, copilot, and flight mechanic) had to do to handle an in-flight nightmare – having one of the two piston engines on the plane fail. The title read Don’t just sit there; have an accident. As I washed my hands I looked around and saw that the same emergency procedures also were posted on the wall above every urinal. I thought, wow, these guys are really serious.

 

The 758th flew a twenty-year-old cargo plane called the C123K. If you saw the movie Con Air then you have seen one. It looks like the one shown above.  It has a high straight wing with two piston engines, and a fuselage shaped like a pig. It carries 15 tons of cargo or up to sixty troops The C123K was not pressurized, and wasn’t really even watertight. It has a wimpy official name - the Provider.

 

But the C123K had a secret. Under the wings there also were a pair of auxiliary jet engines. Their added thrust could get the plane into the air from a very short dirt runway. It also could keep the plane flying normally with one piston engine completely shut off. The Air Force had a series of jet fighters whose names started with the powerful word Thunder: the F-84 Thunderjet and Thunderstreak, and the F-105 Thunderchief. So the 758th renamed their plane the mighty Thunderpig.

 

The 758th had adult leadership. They believed in personal empowerment. Treat all your people like adults and give them room to blossom. Tell them what needs to be done, and let them work as a team to get it done. Other than emergency procedures you don’t need to spell out exactly how.

 

Now, that was not the typical attitude in Pittsburgh back then. Mostly you got arrogant management butting heads with powerful unions like the United Steelworkers, the USW.  Loadmasters in the 758th were a burly, boisterous, bunch of Polish-American sergeants who worked as hammersmiths over at a USW forge shop. Most were almost in the same shape as back when they had played high school football. They were proud of their reserve unit and treated it like it was their football team.     

 

Eighteen months later I watched the 758th accept an award – the Grover Loening Trophy for best flying unit in the Air Force Reserve. Here is one reason why. One of their planes was flying low at night with a full load of Army Rangers getting ready for a paratroop drop. The ramp and door on the back of the plane already were wide open when one engine sputtered and then quit. They began to lose altitude rapidly. The crew feathered the propeller, started up the auxiliary jets and the mighty Thunderpig climbed and got them home safely. A less skilled crew probably would have crashed and killed all 45 people aboard.  

 

Personal empowerment comes in all sorts of places. I found it in an Air Force Reserve unit. Which unit does your workplace resemble more, the Mobility Support Squadron (a mess) or that Tactical Airlift Squadron? Could you help change it?

 

An image of a C123K came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Shooting down a fake quote - not really from a famous writer and pilot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Brian Tracy blog post on July 6, 2024 titled 117 Leadership quotes for Inspiration, has the following quote at #23, allegedly from the well-known French writer and pilot Antoine de Saint Exupéry:

 

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

 

And at the Gem State Patriot News blog on June 30, 2024 there is a post by Brent Regan titled Unity which begins with a similar quote:

 

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

 

But an article by Garson O’Toole at Quote Investigator (QI) on August 25, 2015 titled Teach Them to Yearn for the Vast and Endless Sea found that Monsieur Saint Exupéry did NOT ever say those exact English words. They are a posthumous paraphrase from more than fifty-five years later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a real quote you can tell us precisely: Who said it, What he said, When in his lifetime he said it, and Where he said it. A quick glance at Wikipedia shows that Antoine de Saint Exupéry was born on June 29, 1900 and died on July 31, 1944. Garson says:

 

“QI conjectures that this section of ‘Citadelle’ [1948] inspired the construction of the modern quotation although one or more intermediate steps may have occurred. It was possible that someone read the section and created a paraphrase or commentary. The modern quotation might be based on this posited intermediate text. Saint-Exupéry himself may have written a text that was closer to the modern quotation although it has not been located.”

 

On May 11, 2024 I had blogged about another fake quote also used by Brent Regan, in a post titled A fake Alexander Hamilton quote, ironically about falling for anything. But for his more recent post he didn’t bother to check where I told him, at Quote Investigator. And in a comment on the more recent post, John Livingston outrageously whined about how my:

 

“Officious claims of inaccuracies when claiming a falsehood are equally dangerous.” 

 

A cartoon image of a Lockheed P38 was adapted from one at Openclipart.

 

Did an inspirational quote about leadership come from John Quincy Adams or Dolly Parton?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Katie Sanders at Politifact on May 1, 2017 titled Ivanka Trump’s new book includes quote falsely and frequently attributed to John Quincy Adams. He was our sixth president and lived from 1767 to 1848. That quote is:

 

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”

 

The article notes that:

 

“But we did talk with someone well-versed in his considerable output: Sara Martin, editor in chief of The Adams Papers of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

 

‘I am confident that this is not a JQA quotation,’ she said. ‘It neither sounds like him, nor is it really the vein of political thought that he typically expresses in his quotations.’ “

 

Katie references another article by Garson O’Toole at Quote Investigator on July 3, 2011 titled If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. Garson notes that the supposed quote first appeared in a 2002 book! He says it may have been derived from this 1997 quote by Dolly Parton (born in 1946):

 

“If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.”

The claimed Adams quote recently turned up again on July 6, 2024 in a Brian Tracy blog post titled 117 Leadership quotes for Inspiration, where it was the second quote.

 

A painting of John Quincy Adams and a photo of Dolly Parton came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Grease versus Gunk in The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On July 5, 2024 I blogged about the Drawbacks of jargon monoxide (hollow and impenetrable babble). In that post I discussed Chapter 7 from the 2024 book by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao titled The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder. They describe how leaders can add grease to reduce friction and make it easier for desirable things to happen (as shown above). Leaders also can add gunk (sand) to increase friction and make it harder for other, undesirable things to happen.

 

There is a nine-page ChangeThis manifesto on January 31, 2024 adapted from the book, titled The Wisdom of Slowing Down. There also is an article (interview) with Robert Sutton at strategy+business on April 8, 2024 titled Jargon monoxide, friction fixers, and the meeting that could have been an email.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On page 243 of the book there is a table comparing how differently Grease People and Gunk People handle rules, risks, and monitoring. On page 244 there is a discussion of another article by Dahlia Lithwick at Slate on June 8, 2012 titled Chaos Theory: A Unified Theory of Muppet Types. She says people either are Chaos Muppets (corresponding to Grease People) or Order Muppets (corresponding to Gunk People). In the science fiction television series Babylon 5, there are two ancient races (First Ones) called Shadows (lords of chaos) and Vorlons (lords of order). They ask different questions when they meet people. I have modified that table as shown above.

 

The grease gun and sand bucket were adapted from images at Wikimedia Commons.

 

What David Gergen missed when he discussed results from the 2014 Chapman Survey of American Fears in his 2022 book Hearts Touched with Fire – How Great Leaders Are Made

 

A common strategy for opening a speech, blog post, or book section is to quote a Startling Statistic. Hopefully that statistic is real, not like one I blogged about in a post on March 22, 2019 titled An apparently authoritative statistic about fear of public speaking that really lacks any support. And when you look it up you should get back to its primary source, and also check for the most recent results.  

 

On October 20, 2022 I blogged about how David Gergen’s 2022 book Hearts Touched with Fire – How Great Leaders Are Made has an excellent chapter on The Art of Public Persuasion. Chapter 9 in it, on pages 154 to 169, is titled The Art of Public Persuasion and its second section  titled The Basics of Public Speaking opens on page 161 by stating:

 

“Some years ago, a pollster reported on the three greatest fears of Americans. Their results: Number three were bugs, snakes, and other animals; second was heights; the greatest fear was speaking in front of an audience.”

 

Notes in the back of his book indicate he was referring to a commonly cited article by Christopher Ingraham in the Washington Post on October 30, 2014 titled America’s top fears: public speaking, heights and bugs. I first blogged about it in a post on October 27, 2014 titled What do the most Americans fear? The Chapman Survey of American Fears and the press release copying reflex. Then I blogged about it on October 29, 2014 in another post titled Chapman Survey on American Fears includes both zombies and ghosts, and included a series of bar charts.

 

What did the primary source say about that survey? There is a press release by Sheri Ledbetter at Chapman University on October 20, 2014 titled What Americans Fear Most – New Poll from Chapman University. Instead it listed the following top five things Americans fear most as: Walking alone at night, Becoming the victim of identity theft, safety on the internet, Being the victim of a mass/random shooting, and public speaking. Why is that list different?

 

That top ranking for public speaking in the 2014 survey Gergen mentioned came because it only considered 12 ‘phobias’ although there really were questions about 61 fears, worries, or concerns. Those twelve are less than a fifth of the survey questions. You can find detailed results from Chapman, but will see those questions were asked in seven different ways: Safety (6 questions) – How safe do you feel? Internet-related Fears (5 questions) – How concerned are you about the following internet-related problem? Environmental Attitudes & Concerns (12 questions) - Indicate the extent to which you feel concerned about the following environmental issue. Disasters (14 questions) - How worried are you that the following natural/manmade disasters or event could occur in the United States in the next 25 years? Governmental Concerns (4 questions) – How worried are you about the following? Fear of Criminal Victimization (8 questions) – How afraid are you of being victimized in the following way? Phobias (12 questions) – How afraid are you of the following?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you add the eight similar questions about Criminal Victimization to Phobias for a total of twenty (still just a third of the results), you find, as shown above, that 49.7% feared Identity theft/credit card fraud versus only 25.3% for public speaking. So, public speaking came in second rather than first, as I discussed on January 10, 2022 in a post titled The opening paragraph of an article on public speaking earns two pinocchios for telling us lies.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is the 2014 survey the only one from Chapman University? No, they repeated it annually seven more times, but with the questions asked in a consistent way, and a bigger list with 79 to 95 questions. They skipped the pandemic year of 2020, so there was just a survey titled 2020/2021. As shown above via another bar chart, in 2015 through 2022 the most common (#1) fear was of Corrupt Government Officials, and it was much larger than that for Public Speaking, which ranked from #26 to #59. You can find articles from Chapman discussing their surveys in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020/21, and 2022.   

 

David Gergen’s 2022 book Hearts Touched with Fire – How Great Leaders Are Made has an excellent chapter on The Art of Public Persuasion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I enjoyed reading David Gergen’s excellent 2022 book Hearts Touched with Fire – How great leaders are made. Chapter 9 in it, on pages 154 to 169, is titled The Art of Public Persuasion and has a good discussion of public speaking. Sections in it are titled:

 

FINDING YOUR PUBLIC VOICE

THE BASICS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

  First, Know Your Purpose

  Second, Have a Clear Message

  Third, Pay Attention to the Key Elements of a Speech

  Fourth, the Importance of Stories

  Fifth, Master the Elements of Eloquence

PERSUASION IN A DIGITAL WORLD

 

I blogged about how the chapter opens on October 8, 2022 in a post titled You can learn about public speaking from the same old book used by Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas. My only problem with this chapter is the statement opening the section titled THE BASICS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING, on page 161, which I will blog about in a follow-up post:

 

“Some years ago, a pollster reported on the three greatest fears of Americans. Their results: Number three were bugs, snakes, and other animals; second was heights; the greatest fear was speaking in front of an audience.”

 

The Executive Summary beginning on page 235 lists the following 20 Key Takeaways:

 

OUR COUNTRY NEEDS A SERIOUS COURSE CORRECTION
PREPARE NOW TO PASS THE TORCH TO NEW GENERATIONS

LEADERSHIP, ALWAYS HARD, HAS BECOME HARDER

LEADERSHIP STARTS FROM WITHIN

HAVE THREE OBJECTIVES EARLY

FIND YOUR TRUE NORTH

FOCUS ON YOUR STRENGTHS

EXTEND YOUR LEADERSHIP JOURNEY OUTSIDE YOURSELF

TRY HARD THINGS, FAIL, MOVE ON

YOU ARE NEVER TOO YOUNG TO LEAD

DEVOTE A YEAR TO NATIONAL SERVICE

SECURE YOUR FINANCES

EMBRACE CRUCIBLE MOMENTS

LEARN TO MANAGE YOUR BOSS

MOBILIZE OTHERS THROUGH PERSUASION

YOUR GREATEST ENEMY MIGHT BE YOU

LEARN FROM NEW MODELS OF LEADERSHIP

SEEK GUIDANCE FROM THE PAST AND PRESENT

FRIENDS AND NETWORKS STILL MATTER

MAINTAIN A CELESTIAL SPARK

 

The fifteenth takeaway, on pages 241 and 242, titled MOBILIZE OTHERS THROUGH PERSUASION says:

 

“From the days of Demosthenes, who practiced speaking with stones in his mouth, to the days of Oprah, who can create magical moments with her guests, leaders have relied upon their capacity to persuade. As Churchill is believed to have said, ‘Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as a gift of oratory.’ As in so many areas of leadership, there is only one way to master it: practice, practice, practice. Accept every offer to speak; prepare carefully (Churchill would spend an hour of prep for each minute he had in a parliamentary speech); and solicit feedback.”

 

There is an Epilogue titled Answering the Call, containing a section starting on page 258 titled IN THE ARENA that quotes paragraph eight from a well-known speech given on April 23, 1910 by Theodore Roosevelt titled Citizenship in a Republic which powerfully begins by stating:

 

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

 

The image of Theodore Roosevelt came from the Library of Congress.

 

Is that 2x2 graphic a chart, or a matrix? How many quadrants are there?

Experts who lecture us on business or leadership topics love to make up 2x2 graphics which use two factors (each at two levels) to create four descriptive categories. When the factors are qualitative (low and high) the result is a 2x2 table, as is shown above.

I described tables in my previous post titled Is that 2x2 graphic a table, a chart, or a matrix? Should the axis go from left to right or right to left? In that post I discussed Stephen R. Covey’s so-called Time Management Matrix (also shown above in my revised form). It really just is a table. The 5th definition for a matrix in the Merriam-Webster dictionary instead is:

“a rectangular array of mathematical elements … that can be combined to form sums and products with similar arrays…”

When the two factors instead are quantitative the result is a 2x2 chart (commonly known as a two dimensional x-y graph), as is shown above. One type of chart has the axes centered and uses all four quadrants. Another type just uses one quadrant, and has the axes located at the lower left.

At the Magnetic Speaking web site there is a good recent blog post by Rahul Guttal titled How to Approach Leadership Interview Questions. But it is illustrated by a chart similar to that shown above, that mistakenly is titled as Leadership Communication Matrix. The horizontal axes are labeled with Logic at the left and Emotion at the right, while the vertical axes have Details at the bottom and Vision at the top. Those apparent four axes (and quadrants) are very confusing. His point is the Typical Professional uses less vision and more logic than is desired (The Sweet Spot).

Mr. Guttal apparently was inspired by a much earlier Magnetic Speaking blog post from Peter Khoury titled The Number One Key to Leadership Communication that also used two axes but is labeled as shown above. The 0,0 point could refer to an entirely ‘content-free’ presentation with neither Evidence nor Emotion nor Detail nor Abstraction. At YouTube you can watch a parody showing a  0,0 presentation titled ‘Thought Leader’ gives talk that will inspire your thoughts.

There should instead be two axes with percentages for Emotion and Vision (which belong in a single quadrant), as I have shown above in my revised chart. A second Leadership Presentation Chart shows four types of presentations.   

Another useful business chart is often misnamed as a BCG Matrix, where BCG is an acronym for the Boston Consulting Group. It has a horizontal axis for the Relative Market Share, and a vertical axis for the Market Growth Potential, as shown above. The Wikipedia article titled Growth-share matrix points out that it is a chart. The topic also is discussed in an article by Vincent Van Vliet at toolshero on January 20, 2013 titled BCG Matrix.

Rather curiously the original January 1970 Boston Consulting Group article by Bruce Henderson titled The Product Portfolio used a left-handed horizontal axis (and Dog was instead named Pet). The Wikipedia Growth-share matrix article notes that both General Electric and McKinsey also had developed more complicated 3x3 charts. Back in 2004 there even was a book by Alex Lowy and Phil Hood titled The Power of the 2x2 Matrix. You can read an excerpt online.