Speak Like a Visionary Leader

Speak Like a Visionary Leader: 5 Communication Shifts That Change Everything

Description:
Communication isn’t just how you talk—it’s how you lead, build trust, and influence every room you walk into. In this solo episode, Erin breaks down 5 powerful communication shifts that will help you speak like a visionary, not just a manager. Whether you're leading a morning stand-up or navigating a tough HR conversation, these tools will elevate your clarity, confidence, and leadership impact.

You’ll learn how to:

• Speak to lead, not manage
• Regulate emotions to keep your message clear
• Use fewer words with more weight
• Ask better questions to unlock team growth
• Stop oversharing and start inspiring

This is your roadmap to leading with your voice, and multiplying your influence.

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Transcript

1:06

Hi everyone. It's Erin and it's me and you. Today, we are going to be talking about how to speak like a leader, because communication really isn't just how we talk, it's how we lead. It's how we build trust, and how we shape the energy of every single room that we walk into. When we walk in. We need to be present and they need to know. That we are the tone setter, right? Most leaders are speaking like managers, but leaders inside of the community need to be able to speak like visionaries. You need to know what needs to happen today to have one step closer to your goal, whatever that is for you. Some leaders are oversharing, overexplaining, or reacting emotionally, and then wondering why no one's. Following them or doing what we ask them. God knows. That's so frustrating. Your voice can either build trust or break momentum by the words that we say, by the tone that we set, by the energy that we bring into a room. And the difference isn't about saying more, it's about saying it better. How can I get my point across in a better way? It's not about more content, it's about less content in a better way of being delivered. So in this episode, I'm gonna talk to you about how you can shift from being heard to being followed, right? A leader has to have. Followers, you have to have a team willing to walk with you where you lead them to go. These five communication strategies completely changed how I lead, how I talk, and I believe they'll change how you show up to. I use these strategies even now as I'm working on presentations, workshops. Um, the a hundred percent leader, the, the coaching that I do, these are some shifts that I am. Currently working on and have worked on and continually are working on. When a leader learns to communicate with clarity and confidence and rooted in authenticity and learning how to connect, everything will change. It becomes a lot easier, and we stop blaming other people and we start realizing just how much influence I have over a situation and that. Is really where success starts happening. That's when we start cooking with the hot sauce folks. So let's dive into it. Why is communication or make or break skill inside our community? Well, if you listen to the episode last week with Eva Daniel, I'm going to remind you again that communication is not a soft skill. They're called soft skills because it's hard to, to measure them, but they're not soft. They're actually what you need in order to, to be successful, especially in today's world. But communication is the leadership skill. If you wanna create impact, if you wanna have influence, if you wanna stop controlling, if you wanna stop having to be involved in everything, what is the one skill that you need that's communication. How do I train them effectively? How do I let them know what needs to be done? How do I equip and empower people in my team to solve problems on their own, to make decisions, to say the right things to families? That's all coming down to your communication, your ability to communicate. Of the six key stakeholders that we answer to really is residents families. Our teams inside the community, the corporate home office, the regulatory agencies, and I like to throw in vendors how you're gonna be successful in managing All of that is going to be how you communicate to them, with them, for them, and sometimes in spite of them, right? If I'm talking to a vendor, I wanna make sure they understand what my expectations are, and I'm gonna be asking them questions about what is. Realistic in what can be done. If I'm talking to a family member, I'm gonna be making sure that I know what their expectations are of me. Same goes for residents as well. So communication, every time I stepped into a new community, which was always distress because that was my path, I knew that building trust, connecting and communicating were the top three skills that I needed to focus on because. The person before me didn't do that, and that's why occupancy was low. Community was a hot mess, was because people just said things that weren't true that were never gonna be followed up on, that never were followed up on. And expectations of family members were not met. Communication can help you with that 100% leaders. Again, 100% is a mindset more than it is a metric. It is a goal. It is a metric. It's what we're measured by. It's the, it's the, it's the Super Bowl of senior living, and I like to help leaders reach 100%. Okay? I like to reach a hundred percent. It was always the goal of mine. I wanted to be the best and I want you to be the best, and that's why I make this podcast. But a hundred percent leaders know that communication is how we build trust. trust is how we grow influence inside of our community. You watch certain influencers on social media and they're communicating with you. They're communicating with you, with the music that they play. They're communicating with you, with the dance moves that they do. They're communicating with you while they're putting on their makeup, and they're communicating with you the makeup that they wear, even if they're not talking about it. There's so much you can learn from the people that you follow on social media because it's all about influence. Nonverbal and verbal communication. That's what social media is, right. So let's get into these five shifts. The shift number one is speak to lead. Okay? Do not apologize for the authority that your title brings, your title, whatever it is, inside the community or regional director, or CEO or whoever's listening to this. You have a title and at some point, it brings a level of authority. Don't apologize for that authority. Own that authority. Like don't be authoritative, but understand that when you downplay your message, people will downplay your leadership. So if I'm walking into standup or I'm walking to an all associate meeting. I am Aaron Thompson, the executive director. The buck stops with me. Everything stops with me. I am the leader whether I feel like the leader that day or not. I'm the leader. I have got to speak like the executive director that I am. I'm not going to downplay myself in front of my team. I am going to esteem myself. And understand how important the message is that I'm going to deliver. And in fact, it's really not about you. It's about your message. And so if you understand that my message is more important than the way that I feel, then I'm not gonna downplay the message because these people need to understand what I'm trying to tell them. And so that has to be packaged in a way where you are speaking with authority. You need to listen to what I say because it's important. So the way that I say it, how fast, how slow I say it, how I'm looking, people in the eyes, my energy while I'm leading the meeting. All of that is speaking to people. I am going to speak like I am the executive director of this building and I am gonna teach you how we're gonna grow to a hundred percent today. Your involvement in tours is very important. Let me tell you why, right? Or. Let's talk about how to calibrate a thermometer to 32 degrees and not zero, because that, that's a message that's important when you go into meetings. One of the best ways to be able to speak with intention and certainty and ownership is preparation. If you don't have confidence stepping into a presentation or a all associate meeting, it's because you didn't prepare. Now, some of us can wing it. Some of us who've been doing this for a long enough time and have taught the same trainings, maybe you can wing it, but prepare, because preparation brings confidence. You can't go on a stage and not prepare and look good and get the message out that you want. Okay. 100%. Leaders don't play small. They speak with purpose. Preparation will get you there. Owning your authority will get you there. Understanding that the message is more important than you, the way that you feel that day. And speaking with clarity. There's a difference between speaking in generalizations and speaking with. Specificity. We'll get into that a little bit more, but when you speak with specifics, when you talk about, and you define your direction, which is my D in the lead acronym, when you define your direction and you let them know what you want, what you want them to get out of this meeting, and what your goal is, you're owning your authority. Owning your authority is not about. Being cocky or conceited or arrogant. It's about being prepared and understanding the point of your message and presenting it in an ownership mentality. I own this. I'm gonna speak to you like a leader, not a manager. Because leaders lead people in a direction that they want them to go, and managers just keep the status quo. New mindset, speak to lead. Not to manage. Own your message and discuss your expectations, because expectations are an important part of leadership. Do they know my, my expectations are, do I know what their expectations are? Again, your team will mirror the energy of your message, own it, speak like the leader that they want to follow. So I want you to think about it. Are you diluting your message when you speak to people? are you being sheepish? Do you not have confident in your tone, in your presence? Do you allow other people's opinions to lose your confidence a bit That's diluting your message. So know what's important to you. And anchor into it and speak it like it's important.'cause there's a lot of people in our communities that will try to manipulate things that don't need to be manipulated. Okay? So write down one moment this week where you're gonna lead with your full voice, knowing your point that you want to make and you're gonna own it. cause that's important. Own your message, do not downplay it. Shift number two, don't let emotions hijack the message. I'm an emotionally and very passionate person, okay? I have let my emotions hijack a message Many times in my life, many, many, many times, I have learned that my emotions are just data points for me, right? They're not necessarily the director that I have allowed them to be. Over time. They should not be steering. My direction, emotions are energy bubbles and they rise up and sometimes they'll go away and as quick as 90 seconds. To me, when you let emotions hijack the message, you are reacting versus responding, or somebody says something to you and then all of a sudden your whole tone, authority, ownership, and presence changes. And you feel like you have no choice but to react. And when we react, it's instinctively, it's based on our own trauma triggers. It's based on our own past. But when you respond, you take the time and you think about it, and you speak to lead, and you own the message to completely different things, right? Share your feelings, but lead with intention. Just because you said something to me doesn't mean that my message is gonna be off. It just means that I need to tell you how I feel about it, but I'm gonna lead with point. I'm gonna speak like a leader. I'm not going to let my emotions hijack me. Okay? Emotions are not the enemy. Emotions can be leveraged for you because who doesn't love a good, passionate speech telling you that anything is possible or a passionate speech saying how much you love what you do. That's owning the moment, right? But it's also being intentional with what you're trying to say. I think it's important. For you to really understand, to leverage your emotions and leverage other people's emotions. And by leveraging that, I mean use it to the advantage of the message that you wanna get out and to inspire people and motivate people to work towards the goal that you both have set. Emotions can be great motivators, but they also can make a mess. Of the momentum that you've created. So when I think about emotions hijacking your message, I am really discussing the way that we place the meaning of everything, and the meaning that I placed on a lot of things in my life were not true. I made a lot of things personal that were not personal because everything was personal to me. As a passionate person, I poured everything I had into everything I do, and I still do. But the difference is I don't make personal meanings that affect me in a negative way anymore. Somebody doesn't like what I say, it doesn't bother me. If somebody chooses to say something negative about me, it doesn't bother me because I know what's true. The meaning I place on everything is more important than what anybody says about me, because I no longer let my emotions hijack my message. Now, am I perfect at that? No. and I understand when I fall off the wagon, my emotions are not going to affect my message because in the past. It has affected it in a negative way, so understand the tone of your leadership is your signature. When I speak to lead, I wanna own my message, and when I feel the emotions creeping up, I understand that I don't want my emotions to hijack the message. I need to do what I need to do to feel the feelings, and yet stay intent with my message. My emotions are not my enemy, but they should not be driving the car in the direction that I want them to go. Okay? Because emotions come, and emotions go, but our message should always stay the same. We're gonna make a community that's a great place to live and work. And how we're gonna do that is this. Okay? And when you can represent how to speak to lead and how to lead. A message without emotions affecting it. You can gain followers, you're staying on course, and those people who try to manipulate or control the situations by throwing these emotional grenades at you, if you haven't had that, congratulations. Um, but I have, they don't have any power because you are owning your message and you're not letting the emotions hijack it. Again, you're, you're owning your authority. Speak to lead. Do not let your emotions hijack the message and say less and mean more of what you say. This is the phase that I'm really in right now is how do I have shorter podcasts that have more impact? And it is being specific. It's not saying as many words, it is being clear. Right, using pause to get my point across rather than a bunch of filler and fluff words. when you pre-frame people to understand, for them to feel and perceive things in a certain way, you're speaking with weight. When we say words like, I think this is what's going to happen, and I'm not sure, but I think this is where it's gonna go. You are automatically pre-framing people to say that she doesn't know what she's talking about just by saying those words. But if you reframed it and you, this is what I know to be true right now, someone's in the hospital and they're gonna go to rehab and then they're gonna come here. Right, and then here's what's next. Here's what you can expect to come next based on the work, based on the six months that I've worked in this community, here's what I have seen, right? These are authority statements. Let people know the boundaries, and also that you are speaking from your experience. But when you were speaking up to a CEO or to a regional director or to another layer in the corporate office, or even in a regulatory, person inside of your community during a survey, well, I think this is what happened. What are they gonna say to you, do you think? Or do you know? And so a better phrase is, here's what I know to be true. Here's what I believe happened, and if you're writing a investigation, a, a sentence is it is reasonable to conclude, right? These are all pre-framing words that help people build their perception, I think builds a perception that you don't know. But when you say, I know this to be true, or I believe this is what happened, you are pre-framing them to understand. You're confident. Two totally different things, and you're speaking to lead in that moment. The other thing is the pause. The pause is very challenging when you're a speaker because you get nervous with the pause. But when you are a listener. The pause is what grabs your attention. So I'm about to say something to you and I'm gonna tell you, this podcast is going to be great. Let me tell you why, because I'm gonna teach you how to speak to lead and not to let emotions hijack your, your message, and to say less and mean more, That pause gets you curious. That pause allows people to reflect in the moment about what you just said, because when we give people too much information, they don't get one point out of it. They're overwhelmed. And that's the point that I'm in. I like to give people everything, but when you give people everything, they don't really have anything because everything is too much. So what is the point? The one sentence, the the one point I want them to get from this one presentation and I need to let them know on the front end, this is what success is gonna look like. This is the main point I want you to make. And then for us to be able to be comfortable in the silence. Because as a speaker it is uncomfortable on stage with the silence. Is somebody gonna answer? Is somebody not? Are they thinking, what do I need to do? I don't know what to do with my hands. That's what it feels like up there on the stage while you're learning what it's like for the pause. So in your next team meeting. Choose one sentence that captures the outcome that this meeting is for your all associate staff meeting. what is the one point or the two points that you want the people in the meeting to get and say it at the front end and say it at the end, and try not to give them too much information in between and use pauses. And the next point is questions to help drive the point home. Just like us as leaders, we need to pause more. We need to reflect more. We need to stop trying to be busy all the time and use the pauses in life and the rhythms of the day to our advantage to be comfortable in the pause. It's very powerful. There is power in the pause, and I'm learning this in real time, so I'm learning this with you. Some of y'all are probably really good at that, and I am working on it getting better every day. The shift number four is asking better questions. This is the tool that I wish I would've really, really had an understanding about when I was in the community. If communication is your number one tool. Understanding the power of questions is going to be what I would say is one of the most important parts of communication. Why? Because when you ask people questions, they own the answers, they own the solutions, they come up with the answers themselves, and it shifts the power in some very tense and even non tense moments. Questions. The power of questions is your best friend as a leader, because how many people, and I am one of them, will go to somebody and say, Hey, how do I do this? When they could go look at the binder and find the answers, they could ask chat, GPT. They could do all kinds of things, but they come to you and they take your time and they ask you a thousand questions in a day. So my response could be, well, how would you find that information if I wasn't here? What do you think is the answer to this question? What have you done in the past, right? And so now all of a sudden you're putting the ownership back on them because when you answer the questions, you own the solutions, and the goal is to equip and empower and build confidence. And your leaders because you want more leaders, more problem solvers in your community. So leaders should not want to solve every problem fast because you want your team to be able to solve their problems fast. So uncover slowly. Think of it like a knot and a necklace. When you're really fast and you're really anxious, can you get that tough knot out? Not without getting angry and frustrated, but if you really try, take a deep breath and, and try to get that knot out of the necklace in a very intentional way, you can probably get it out much quicker. And the bigger picture here is at play when you start using questions as a tool. So think of it this way, if I have somebody who comes up to me, I was just on a call with a coaching client and we were talking about gossip. Gossip is an energy in the community. It's almost like its own life force. And most people have a gossip problem inside of a community. I know I did and I had a good community, but Lord have mercy. Those people like to talk and create chaos. And I will tell you, they just were comfortable in chaos no matter what I did. But you can control the narrative. And so if somebody were to bring me a piece of gossip that was hurtful to me, like on a personal level or that was trying to come at me and bring me pain, I now know that I would ask them, why do you feel like I need to know that? Why do I need to know this? That shifts the pain, can no longer manipulate me with your words. I'm not gonna let my emotions hijack my meeting, my message, and I'm also going to speak as a leader. Why do I need to know this information? What value does this bring to me? Right? You have clearly set a boundary there, and they own what they're trying to do. That is leadership gold right there. The second point of questions in gossip would be when someone thinks of you in a negative way or actions in a negative way, and it goes back to the, well, let me just rephrase it this way. Seth Godin has a quote in the book, tribes, people don't believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them, and they always believe what they tell themselves. So what do leaders do? They give people stories that they can tell themselves stories about the future and about change. So that line that people will believe what other people tell them is really important. And so one of the ways that I tried to combat gossip in my community was I was very consistent with the words that I chose, with the actions that I did. Always trying to act consistent across the board. Everybody's family is important. I never want you to miss a kid. You know, event, give me enough time, I'm gonna make sure it happens. You know, those types of things. And so when somebody would come to me with this outlandish, idea that they have of me or being upset about something, you know, you can ask them, and I did do this inside of a community because I would get frustrated, is what evidence what evidence do you have for that to be true? I'm not gonna defend myself to you, right? I'm not going to give that any energy. We've got two buckets for gossip. We have gasoline, which is gonna add fuel to the fire, or we have water and we can distinguish it. And I believe this question is important. What evidence do you have for that to be true? Use that because. They probably don't have any. They just believed what somebody told them rather than looking at the body of evidence of the work that I have done for this community, right, that you have done for this community. choosing to value my energy and ask the question of what evidence they have to support this claim, this theory, this. Moment that they have heard and believed is important. Again, it's directing energy, it's speaking to lead. It's not letting your emotions hijack your message, right? And you're setting them up to look at the evidence and understand, oh, well maybe I don't have any. And as the leader, you're telling them what to believe. In a nonverbal way because you're giving them the opportunity to own their own solutions, to find their own answers, right? And in sales, we all know that asking better questions is important, and when you're managing vendors and family members asking questions about their expectations of what's important to them, what does success look like to you? These are important questions for you to know how to meet their needs to be successful for them. That. Is the point of leadership, right? Is understanding what success is and then just meeting that expectation. Easier said than done, but the more you communicate, the more you know, the more you're consistent with it. The more you equip and empower people, the easier these success, these wins. Getting to a hundred percent will be. So if you remember one thing from this episode, remember this, the leaders who ask the best questions will unlock the best outcomes. Now, soon I'm gonna do a podcast on all the questions, on the power of questions and how to use them. I, I could probably have a month of podcast episodes about that. This tool is so important and I believe it. Um, so much so use the power of questions. Alright, shift number five, stop oversharing and start leading. Clarity builds trust and confidence and oversharing drains it. I have learned that too much oversharing is often insecurity in disguise. Or it is a tool of distraction for somebody who wants you to not focus on them and focus on everybody else. So as a leader, if I'm gonna speak to lead and own my authority, this goes back to if I share too much, I lose the main point. So I want to stop oversharing. I don't wanna get very specific. On the needs and the wants and the points that I'm trying to make while I'm talking to you. So again, let's talk about communicating up to your home office because it's important to know how you communicate into your community. Your key directors or even your frontline teams are going to be very different than how you're going to communicate up as a new leader, as a leader who was trying to prove her worth at times too corporations and home offices, I did overshare. I wanted them to know the story before the story to get to the main story, to understand the point that I want wanted to make. The issue is people in the home office are very, very busy, and if you don't get to your point in a very specific and quick way, they're gonna tune you out and they're not going to listen to you. I mean, how many times do we do that to people who overshare with us? This, I'm here to say that I have, so you can have a framework. You could say, okay, here's the situation. Here's the solution that I want. Here's what I have done to fix the situation, and here's how we're going to move forward. Here's where we are right now. Here's what I'm doing about it. Here's the solution that I want, and here's how I'll move forward with that solution. That is how you communicate up. It's how you communicate to families. That's how you communicate to vendors. they don't need to know everything. They need to know what's most important, and they need to know what your expectations are, what you can and cannot do, what you will and will not tolerate. Right? Here are my expectations. When you overshare, you dilute your message. When your emotions hijack your message, you dilute your message. When you downplay your role and the importance of your message, you dilute your message. Think about when you're doing an investigation for an incident, for an abuse allegation for your financial review. And, and you're asking people questions and they're oversharing with you. What are they doing? They're distracting you. And if you start chasing down every rabbit hole that they want, you have no time. You're not being productive, you're not moving forward, you're staying stuck. You can't get done with the project that you need to get done. Oversharing is a distraction mechanism. People will tune you out. And that's not what you want. So when you speak, speak with grace, speak with confidence, speak with firmness, and be very clear on the direction that you want to go. I, so as we wrap up this episode, let's run it back one more time before we close. You wanna speak to lead? You wanna speak with authority. You don't want your emotions to hijack your message. You want to lead your emotions, be aware of them, and don't let them be your enemy. Use them for leverage. Don't let them drive the car, okay? They're not the ones that's leading the charge. Here you are. Do not react. You want to respond intentionally. Use fewer words that carry more weight. Don't use phrases like, I think you want to use phrases like, this is what I know to be true based on my experience, right? You're pre-framing people how to think about something, how to think about you and your leadership. Ask questions that unlock growth Better questions lead to better outcomes. Let people own their own solutions. Don't be so quick to solve all their problems and trust that clarity is kinder than confusion. Stop oversharing, be specific, and start leading. These are shifts that I am working on currently inside of me building the skill of being a professional speaker. as my big presentation's coming up for ACA and Cal this month. It is something that I'm currently working on right now, and I wanted to share it with you because good leaders, a hundred percent leaders inside our communities use communication as a way to leverage their leadership. It's really important. So not that you need to work on all five of these at one time. Again, choose one'cause some of these you're probably really good at. So choose an area that you want to enhance and maybe one that you want to improve on. Okay? Use it intentionally whenever it's in your, if it's in your morning standup, or your next tour, or a hard HR or coaching moment. Notice the changes when you speak like the leader. And notice the ways that people are responding to you differently because it will change. And don't be discouraged if the seeds that you plant do not grow in seconds. Okay? Seeds grow in seasons, and a lot of leaders get lost in discouragement. Don't get lost in discouragement. The goal is to experiment, to grow and to get better. And over time you're gonna see it. And a lot of the times it's just how you feel because how you feel is important and how do you wanna feel? Focus on that. How do I wanna feel when I lead this meeting? How do I wanna feel whenever I'm having this hard coaching or HR moment, right? I want to, I'm gonna feel like a leader, so I'm gonna speak like a leader and I don't want to let my emotions hijack this message. I wanna, I wanna own it with authority. I wanna be very clear. I wanna ask questions to get better outcome. That's the goal of a hundred percent leader. That's the goal of this episode for you. Your communication is important. It is the anchor of your leadership and the better you communicate, the higher your potential will be and growing your capacity and your potential. It starts with awareness, and I hope that's what this episode was for you. Thank you for listening today. I'm glad that it was just me and you, and if this episode resonated with you or you feel like other people on your team need to hear it, share it with them. That's what we want. The goal of this episode is to grow leaders, every leader inside of a community and outside of a community, together, we can provide a great place to live and work for everyone inside of our community. we're opening up the wait list for the a hundred percent leader that starts in January. I'll be more than happy to have you aboard. We are in the second, going on the third week in our current cohort, and we're having a great time. You are always invited. Um, I offer one on one coaching and speaking opportunities at conferences and in companies. Thank you for your time today. Again, leave a message. Share this episode. Rate it on whatever you're listening to, Spotify or message me, let me know. Let me know how using these tools helps inside of your community. As always, I appreciate you. Thank you for giving me your time and attention today, and I hope I'm adding value to you. Always know that you are enough when you are aspiring for more for you.