Voice Lessons: Applying Science to the Art of Leadership Communication

Presentation skills, written communication training, and formal rhetoric and debate skills are all useful, basic developmental tools for modern managers and leaders. The explosion of new communication evidence from the fields of linguistics and neuroscience have modified and even overturned decades of best practices. The modern manager or leader, in order to be at the top of their communication game, needs to understand which ideas of the past still work and which habits of the past to break. This book works hard at providing the scientific evidence for modern leadership communication. Practical and useful, it will help any manager who wants to upgrade their communication skills understand what aspects of communication most matter. Science has always informed art and this book applies science to the spirit and art of excellent communication. There are two great keys to enhancing your ability: practice and practicing the right thing. This book will provide you with encouragement for the first and information for the second.

Ron Crossland has worked with talent from the boiler room to the boardroom, a range of experience that has taught him that regardless of position, individuals' work matters. He has helped individuals, teams, and organizations develop better leaders, create more innovation, forge better internal and external relationships, and inspire greater performance. He has been an organizational consultant and educator since 1985. Whether delivering a keynote or engaged with a small group over a two-day workshop experience, Ron blends science and art, data and philosophy, with theory and practicality to achieve an enviable goal for educators: help leaders find practical applications they can use right away as well as prompt them to reconsider their longer term leadership positions and practices. He is a five-time entrepreneur and has held founding and/or executive positions in the following companies: International Leadership Associates Tom Peters Company Tom Peters Company, Ltd. Bluepoint Leadership Development Ron is a writer, an intuitionist, a factoid junkie, and a research synthesizer. He is a speaker for company meetings, industry association events, and other venues. Ron received his BS in Electronic Engineering Technology (1975) and his MBA (1977) from Oklahoma State University. In 2011 OSU's Spears School of Business recognized him as one of the top fifty MBA graduates of its fifty-year history.