Executive Communications Tip: Start with the Bottom Line

Every single one of my coaching clients face challenges with executive communications in one form or another. The most common contexts in which these issues come up include these two dimensions of personal branding and executive presence:

• Communicating in an executive fashion to be seen as a potential executive (i.e., ready for a promotion)
• Communicating with executive colleagues to earn credibility in senior leadership conversations

But what does good executive communication really look like in action? Most of the time, it starts with the bottom line.

Executive Communications Stems from Executive Thinking

There’s a reason the frontal lobe of the brain is called the home of the brain’s “executive function.” Executive mental functions such as communications, analysis and decision-making fundamentally relies on our brain’s ability to prioritize and sift through huge amounts of data and information served up by the rest of our brain in order to produce an outcome. These outcomes look like decisions, requests and actions.

Similarly, acting as a sort of “frontal lobe of the organization”, executives in companies lead most effectively and efficiently when they are focused on the outcomes…