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Posts Tagged With: "Robert Kennedy"

Where’s Your Lean?

Bert DeckerPosted by Bert Decker   |   September 18th, 2009   |   4 Comments   |  Tweet This

Wheres-Your-LeanYears ago I co-produced the film “Robert Kennedy Remembered.” One of my favorite lines in the narrative described when Robert Kennedy first came to Washington as Senator, “He hit the ground running, leaning forward.”

Politicians know it. Executives know it too. Successful communicators (ie. successful people) lean forward in all they do. They possess character and talents, of course — natural gifts and developed skills. But it’s how they communicate with action that differentiates them from the pack.

The forward lean is a mindset. It impacts every facet of your life. It’s a “can do” attitude, approaching opportunities with a simple commitment to just do it.

We’re talking about leaders who engage. They get involved. They participate. They stand up, raise their hand, volunteer and take chances without hesitation. High energy, always working toward something specific and moving in a deliberate direction – successful leaders understand how to lead, by example. They communicate with action.

Do you have a forward lean? Do you:

  • sit in the front row at a seminar or meeting?
  • speak up, ask questions, volunteer?
  • often find you’re the first to get things started?
  • jump in and get involved…put yourself on the playing field?

Successful communication is a natural extension of the forward lean. We see it in high profile leaders, but we also see it in every area of life: Home, office, church, non-profit, school, community organizations. The opportunities for any of us to lean forward abound.

So where does your lean manifest? Are you leaning forward? Once you start leaning forward, you MOVE forward.


Categories: Communication Skills, Leadership and Communications, Public Speaking, Short Bits
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Getting Into The Zone

Bert DeckerPosted by Bert Decker   |   October 25th, 2007   |   Leave a Comment   |  Tweet This

Letting_go
"Communications is about self-control and staying on message. But it’s also about letting go…"

Although I slightly altered the opening quote of David Ignatius of The Washington Post – since he used ‘Politics’ instead of ‘Communications’ -  his great article is really about communications, not politics. There is some great learning value here in this column – and worth reading in it’s entirety.

Ignatius is ostensibly talking about Obama’s need to regain his fire (after all he WAS the #1 communicator last year!), but putting politics aside he is really talking about the ability to connect – and he references several of our past Presidents and would be Presidents:

"(Great Presidents) have the ability to enter into the moment so totally that they lose themselves and bond with their audience. Franklin D. Roosevelt could create a sense of easy intimacy even back in the days of radio. John F. Kennedy was "graceful" precisely in his unscripted moments of irreverence and wit. Ronald Reagan,
too, mastered the art of controlled spontaneity; people accused him of
reading his lines, but his real gift was an actor’s ability to
improvise."

Robert_kennedy
And as he talks about Robert Kennedy, whom I knew and described in one of my first blogs about a similar experience and also blogged about here, Ignatius describes "another tightly wound politician who found a way to let go
– and in the process moved his candidacy into a different gear. RFK is
such an icon now that we forget how cold and calculating he was through
most of his career, the opposite of his elegant and witty older
brother. But something happened.


A turning point was a speech at Kansas State University
the day after the brooding Kennedy finally announced he would run. "His
voice flat and stammering, his right leg shaking, Kennedy began
tentatively, but then cut loose," Thomas writes, and an aide said "the
field house sounded like it was inside Niagara Falls."
Thomas quotes campaign reporter Jules Witcover on how Kennedy fed off
the roiling response: "He himself seemed to be pulled up on it like a
small boy on a towering seaside breaker, riding it willingly, daringly,
with evident exhilaration."

Read the entire article in The Washington Post here, or if you don’t want the free sign on, you can get it by just continuing on here…

Read the rest of this entry »


Categories: Communication Skills, Leadership and Communications, Newsworthy, Political Communications, Public Speaking, Speakers
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