The time to invest in your CEO Communication skills is now

Pepsico Chairman and CEO Indra K. Nooyi said, “Very early in your life invest in communication skills: How to motivate people – small groups, medium size groups, large groups… You have to learn to communicate, because when you are communicating with large groups of employees, I am assuming you want to move up the ladder, how you communicate and motivate (people) is critically important. And if you don’t learn it early in life, you are never going to learn it later in life.”

Fortune 100 CEOs spend 90% of their time communicating with their stakeholders. Given the huge chunks of time CEOs spend communicating and the critical importance of communication to unleash human potential in this Information Age, training senior managers, who aspire to be CEOs, becomes mission critical especially for large organisations.

Honing your CEO Communication skills can help you rise in your organisation faster. For example, one aspect of CEO Communication is ‘executive presence’ – how you exude power and influence so that those around you perceive you as a leader. When you practice executive presence, you will be identified as a future leader. And that will speed your journey, up the corporate ladder, to the top.

Like any other skill, communication skills too need time for practice. It takes time to perfect your own unique style of communication that engages people. You cannot do this overnight. So, if you start the practice before you are CEO, then you can hit the ‘communication road’ running when you become CEO.

When you are CEO, there are lots on your plate. Time to develop your communication skills will be at the very bottom of your pile of priorities as you attend to more ‘urgent’ matters. In other words, communication training will not be a priority for you once you become CEO.

We are all human, so ‘hubris’ (pride) gets in the way of growing our communication skills when we are CEOs. As CEOs we believe we know it all – and try to wing it when it comes to any communication situation. That is not how great leaders approach communication. “I will prepare, and some day my chance will come,” said the young Abraham Lincoln – years before he became President of the United States. Therefore, getting trained in the art of communication must happen before we become CEO.

From the instance you become CEO you are on show. This is not the time to practice your communication skills – it is the time to deliver! Soon after he took over as Chairman and CEO of GE, Jeff Immelt had to deal with the terror attacks of 9/11. When you become CEO, you do not know what is going to hit you next. If you wish to be prepared for any eventuality, you should start now.

YKG Associates has been in the business of training CEOs and Senior Managers in CEO Communication since 2013. YKG not only holds exclusive training workshops on CEO Communication, but also conducts one-on-one coaching that can assist you to become a better communicator. Visit their website www.ykgassociates.com or contact them on 077-999-2442 or [email protected] for more information.