Speakership is Leadership: a guide for Sudden Leaders who need to lead with their words. Yesterday.

By Margaret Watts Watts Romney

What happens when you're suddenly in a leadership position, but you didn't plan on being the one speaking up or being listened to?

In a world where communication holds immense power, "Speakership" goes beyond mere public speaking and em

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manuscripts LLC
• Release date: Dec 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889267911

Margaret Watts Watts Romney

Margaret Watts Romney has been training, speaking, stumbling, navigating communication blocks, and discovering better ways for her clients to lead for over twenty years.She helps humans be present, express their thoughts, and connect with their people- in the boardroom, the auditorium, or through conversation. Her clients value her safe spaces, stimulating questions, firm nudging, and quick laughter. Her programs at MasterSpeaker Lab are fueled by her experiences coaching over 100 TEDx speakers, Master's studies in Strategic Communication, and training with the NeuroLeadership Institute.She fills her life with chopping vegetables, brewing tea, ocean rowing, singing along in the car, immersing herself in wild Maine, and reveling in her three grown daughters' marvelous lives. To learn more, visit masterspeakerlab.com.

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INTRODUCTION:

Are You a Sudden Leader?

Have you ever needed to step into the role of a leader when you didn’t have a title?

It’s 2012. I’m in my forties, and my mother has been diagnosed as being in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. She reads and hikes and sings just like she always has. But she can no longer follow a recipe or track a date on a calendar or choose appropriate clothing for herself.

Once a week, to spend time with her and to give my dad some rest, I pick her up and take her with me to yoga. Her masterful social skills haven’t left her yet, so most people don’t pick up on what she is missing.

As we lay out our mats, begin breathing, and gently moving, I see things aren’t going well for her. She is confused about which body parts go where. Hand to knee? Or to foot? Turn head to the right? Or left? She is not in form like everyone else. We are getting many sideways glances followed by eyes quickly turning away.

The teacher is getting distracted by us. She comes over to whisper some directions to Mom. I put my hand on my mom’s shoulder but turn to the teacher and say with an easy shrug, It’s okay. She’s got some medical things going on. We’re going to practice in our own way today.

My mother doesn’t comment on the conversation but feels included and calmed since my hand is on her shoulder. She smiles as she looks back and forth at us both. I look her in the eye and smile.

We’re doing great. Aren’t we, Mom?

The teacher looks at my mom in a new and tender way, eyes a little wide, and then back to me for reassurance. I hold the teacher’s eyes calmly and say, No worries. Let it go. I’ve got this.

A switch flipped that day. I realized in this moment, my role with my mother changed. She used to watch over me and help me navigate the world. Now it’s time for me to do this for her.

From the outside, very little had shifted, but internally, my role transitioned. I am now the leader, the caretaker, the protector, the soother, the translator, the guide.

No one had announced this change to me or called me by a different name.

No one gave me a promotion, a certificate, or a raise.

I still served my biological position of daughter, but if I wanted to go to yoga or on a walk or to lunch with my mom peacefully, I needed to lead. I needed to use my voice to help others understand her struggle. I needed to use my voice to calm and direct her when she got confused.

I had to lead by speaking up to guide the situation and the people around me.

Change the Definition of a Leader

Is it time for you to use your voice too? Perhaps you need to guide others even though no one ordained you with a title. Perhaps now you’re in charge of people and need communication skills to manage them. Maybe you’ve been supporting your community from the background, and now you are front and center. Maybe you’re already speaking as a leader but know there are ways to be somehow… better.

But this isn’t the way it always was for you. You didn’t plan on being the one listened to.

You weren’t the type to run for class president. And you probably didn’t have vision boards on your wall picturing yourself in the C-suite by age twenty-two.

But now you are being asked to lead, whether you have a title or not, and you feel a bit… well, a lot… overwhelmed.

Perhaps you’re overwhelmed since our culture’s definition of leadership is limited. We tend to call someone a leader if they match our picture of someone endowed with power and guaranteed competence. Our culture tends to only call long-established and high-ranking people leaders. When I’m stuck in this rigid definition, I can only imagine people to be leaders such as the iconic Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or Disney’s Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger.

Here are two problems with this exclusive definition.

First, it assumes newly minted leaders received the title because of their leadership mastery and existing communication skills. In reality, titles are often given to those who have simply been around the longest or have the best handshake with no regard to vision or communication skills. Rarely, if ever, is a leadership title preceded by training, support, or coaching for the increased communication demands of the job.

Second, the current limited definition of leadership leaves us blind to the everyday leadership responsibilities and opportunities in front of all of us. Where can we positively influence our families and communities? What situations are we encountering at dinner tables, community gatherings, and even yoga studios where we need to suddenly switch into leading through our words?

In this book, when we talk about leadership, we’re not talking about a title, a résumé, perfection, or even established competence. Leadership isn’t the strongest handshake, longevity, or even a proven track record of experience.

I’m not alone in adopting an expanded definition of leadership. In his book Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Simon Sinek states, Leadership requires two things: a vision of the world that does not yet exist and the ability to communicate it (Sinek 2011, 228).

Leadership is using your voice to communicate what comes next with those who are part of the change.

Find the Thing You’ll Give Away

Connecting with others, sharing words, standing with presence in the spotlight, or even just opening my mouth—historically, these were not my strong suits.

At various times in my life, I heard these phrases from my trusted friends:

"I just want you to speak more so I can know anything going on in your head." Ugh.

Do you realize you haven’t shared with anyone whatever it is you want? Ouch.

It’s time for you to learn to simply start opening your mouth. Double ouch.

Nearly twenty years ago, I took my friends’ reproaches seriously and worked toward showing up as a main character in my life and speaking up about how I wanted to influence the world around me. The only way to realize those visions was to start to talk—sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much.

Luckily, I already had a great mentor to show me how speaking skillfully made transformation happen. A mentor who showed me leadership had nothing to do with a title and everything to do with giving; a mentor I had nearly unlimited access to since he was also my dad.

It’s 2003 and a mean twenty-degree April day in Moscow. I’m visiting my parents, who are there on a three-year leadership assignment for their church. As we head into the morning subway, I see the bundled travelers. We’re all wearing so many layers it’s a wonder any of us can bend our elbows. Looking up at the subway map, I feel the foreignness of this city with its twenty-letter-long words in a different alphabet.

We shuffle with dozens of others into the echoey auditorium. My parents head to the front podium while I take an anonymous seat at the back. Though I don’t remove any layers, my shoulders relax a bit as I drop into a familiar pattern: being a listener as my dad speaks.

Whether he addressed a holiday work party of hundreds, a packed chapel at church, or a clerk in a checkout line, when my dad spoke, people listened. They didn’t just listen; they engaged. They nodded. They laughed. Dad worked every crowd. It was a reliable pattern. If a particularly serious waiter was assigned to our restaurant table, we all sat back to watch how long it would take for Dad to melt them into smiles and real conversation, breaking them out of their overtired script. It was as if getting others to smile and be comfortable was his life’s ministry.

I sit in the back of the Moscow auditorium and wonder... what will happen when my dad addresses a crowd of Russians in a language he started learning at age sixty? I see him standing at the microphone. The audience stiffly turns their heads to face the front. I hear his marrow-deep familiar voice speak words I can’t understand. The tones sound like he is announcing a welcome and what will happen throughout the day. I start to dread this day of listening to a language I can’t understand.

Then, it happens. The entire audience cracks a surprised chuckle. A few lines later, full-on laughter. Shoulders relax, bodies settle into seats, and layers come off. They move and nod and breathe as one as they listen to him. The rest of the hour is nearly a call-and-response pattern as he speaks, and they engage. He has again given his gift of laughter and relaxed comfort.

Chris Anderson, Head of TED, sees this giving as the power of public speaking. He states, If you can conjure up a compelling idea in people’s minds, you have done something wondrous. You have given them a gift of incalculable value. In a very real sense, a little piece of you has become part of them (Anderson 2016, 13).

My dad always gave people something extra when he spoke. He left everyone feeling a little happier, a little more seen, a little more enlightened, a little more connected to humanity. The stage, in its very shape is like an outstretched hand—an offering to those who are listening, shared Harvard Medical School psychologist Susan David (2022).

This was the key shift in my own speaking. When I changed my focus from What are they thinking of me? to What gift am I giving them? I started talking. Speaking became easier. Not only did I feel more at ease, but I began to see growth in the world around me due to the words I was saying. I was leading.

Now, after years of teaching, speaking, stumbling, shaking on the stage, navigating communication blocks, and discovering better ways to share my thoughts through my words, I work as a leadership communication consultant. I’ve supported leaders, with and without titles, to clarify their vision of where they want to go, what their gifts are, and use their voices to connect and guide their community.

Build a Foundation

And now, I want to share it with you. Share with you what I’ve learned from coaching over one hundred TEDx speakers, performing on countless stages, master’s studies in Strategic Communication, training with the NeuroLeadership Institute, and working with hundreds of leaders. I’ve gathered principles of communication that have worked for people in the tech industry, for social workers, non-profit leaders, and even for adult siblings around a kitchen table.

I’ll take you behind the scenes with my TEDx speakers and share stories of leaders managing tremendous pressure. I’ll share my face-plant failures with you and show you how to avoid making the same mistakes. I’ll share examples of