The Camera is Always on You

June 22, 2010

From: Morgan, N. (2009).  Trust me: four steps to authenticity and charisma.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

With camcorders and YouTube everywhere, you have to assume that your life as a leader is almost entirely transparent.  This relentless scrutiny means that your decisions are subject to endless second-guessing after the fact.  Most of life is now subject to the instant replay.  How good will you look in slow motion?

Leaders who rely on ad-libbing and improvisation risk looking unprepared and stilted.  The irony of leadership in the media age is that winging it looks fake; only the prepared can look authentic.

This raises the stakes on our cave person communication skills.  It's time to learn how to control the nonverbal conversation as well as we control the content discussions of our lives.  It time to stop leaving the emotional side of leadership to chance.  It's time to make ourselves aware of our own and others' need for the second conversation - the physical messages our limbic brains send out faster than we can think about ourselves, our surroundings, and the others in our lives.  If you can accomplish that, you can boost your leadership skills, increase your authority, and intensify your personal charisma (Morgan, p. 16).

Trust Me is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center.  To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page http://164.107.48.88/winnebago/index.asp?lib=???

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