Don’t be a bore!

There are those leaders that have such charisma that people migrate toward them. Other leaders are great communicators and are able to express their vision in ways that attract people. Certain leaders are obvious experts in their fields and this causes people to respect and listen to them. Of course, there are those raconteurs that can make their points using stories and teams simply understand and follow them.

At an absolute minimum, there are few boring leaders. I came across this April 29, 2009 posting by Gretchen Rubin on Shine from Yahoo titled “7 topics to avoid if you don’t want to be a bore.” While the post itself is insightful, it also has almost 500 reader comments! A key lesson Gretchen provides is to be sure that the topics you bring to a conversation have room for the listener to add content.

Do you get too excited about your own ideas? As a leader, do you leave room for your teams to participate?