You are a competent manager and the boss of dozens, scores, or perhaps even hundreds of people. But do these people regard you as a leader? Does your communication radiate leadership? Do you wish you could engage with your followers more effectively?

If you are perceived only as a boss and not as a leader, you may be constantly facing a battle that seems to not go your way despite your great ideas and strategies. In these fast-changing times, you can no longer command compliance on the strength of your status alone. Your colleagues and subordinates have to willingly concede that you are their leader and follow you. Your ideas need to be sold to others if you want them to take ownership of implementing these and making them successful. Unless each individual is inspired to work towards the goals, these appear uninteresting and perhaps impossible to achieve. The spark of inspiration and motivation is to be provided by your communication as a leader. Working with people in a world where traditional hierarchies have yielded place to more flat structures, our biggest strength may turn out to be our ability to inspire trust, to establish credibility, and to earn respect. In order for your organisation (or department or team) to magnificently play a grand symphony in perfect unison, your role as the conductor rests on nuanced communication that touches each and every player.

Communicating like a leader will give you and your team the winning edge. What does it mean to communicate like a leader? There is no single, clear definition, nor a magic formula for a one-size-fits-all solution to the challenge of developing the necessary skills. Analysing various aspects of communicating as a leader and reflecting on our own style may make us aware of the need to modify our approach and to develop a communication style that radiates leadership. Such a style must suit our personality, strengths, values and circumstances. The Winning Edge helps you to reflect systematically on your current communication approach and strategies and to refine these so that they best serve your goals in your leadership position.

We invite you to take a week off and join us to reflect and ponder over what it means to communicate like a leader. In the process, you will sharpen your most important managerial tool and test it out on highly accomplished peers from other functional areas and other organisations. The experience could pave the way for a transformation for you, for your team and perhaps for your organisation.