Chapter 1
Incredibly Talented

I knew from the beginning that I was looking at a highflier.

Why Me? Why Allen Weiner?

Of course, I always introduce myself at the start of a seminar, so it seems proper to start The Highflier Handbook the same way. The question has always been, "How did you become an opinion leader on executive communication? What gives you the bona fides to be an advice giver about these issues?"

For any of you who knew you had a knack for something early, maybe it was musical talent or writing or auto mechanics, I started picking up on communication behavior while working for my dad in retail. I was 12 years old when I first began helping him at his store. I picked up on facial expression and body language and ways that people expressed themselves. I was fascinated by all of that. I didn't know at that time how I would turn what I saw into a profession. I just knew I was pretty good at it. You could call what I was seeing as learning sales skills if listening and watching customers is at the heart of sales. And most sales professionals would agree.

My first chance to study communication in an academic setting was as a Communication major in college. I was lucky in that it was an immersion in rhetoric and public address. What I had picked up on my own was validated by studying the classic rhetoricians like Aristotle and the application of those principles in presidential rhetoric as Abraham Lincoln used it and finally as all speech writers today apply them.

When I finished school, I joined the Navy. I served on a destroyer and then a cruiser. I was assigned to the Officer of the Deck when out at sea and reported courses and speeds and weather conditions. I was given a lot of advice about how to properly perform my duties. That was an early lesson in simplicity and clarity. But more than proper communication, it was the experience that led me to realize how I flourished in a support role. Even now, when a new client tells me how happy they are to have an executive coach, I tell them, "I'd rather you think of me as your staff officer for communication, credibility, and leadership issues. Think of me as reporting to you and ready to offer advice and counsel when you need it."

I returned to school for a Master's Degree in Communication Studies, as it was then called. The thesis requirement was a disciplined research study. Mine was on Machiavellianism or a personality quality that loves to influence others for the sheer joy of the exercise. I learned statistics and how to conduct proper scholarly research.

I then went to the University of Southern California for a PhD in Communication and was a large part of the Center for Communication Research and Service. Another two years of thorough and disciplined study.

I opened my own firm, Communication Development Associates (CDA), Inc., the day after graduation. I've been all over the world offering advice and counsel to clients who knew how important credible communication behavior would be in their careers.

That, in short, is the road I've been on that led to this book, The Highflier Handbook.

Why Now? Why Should You Care?

I have built a career determined to help fliers become highfliers. I simply had a calling, it's fair to say. I wanted to look back someday and be proud of the role I might have played in others' careers. CDA's practice has, from the start, based our efforts on senior-level feedback about aspiring leaders. Early on employees would receive mid-year and end-of-year reviews that included insights about their performance ranging from "needs to improve," to "met expectations" to "exceeds expectations." In addition, a phenomenon is now a regular exercise throughout corporate America called "360's." I'll wager that most of you reading this have participated in a 360 exercise. Impressions about people were sought from those who report to the person requesting them, from their peers, and from those to whom they reported. The impressions were often about demonstrated competence. For instance, "An incredible contributor," "A proven scientific mind," or "Shares both tactical and strategic ideas to all levels." And, of course, in the sections labeled "Needs Improvement," one might read, "Needs to speak up more in meetings," or "Doesn't participate in team activities," and the dreaded "Not a team player."

At some point, an employee might be encouraged to work with an executive coach to gain some ideas and suggestions to improve their performance. I was among those often chosen to be that coach.

Since the vast majority of the feedback began with very high praise for someone's intellect or demonstrated brain power followed by not so high praise for their communication behavior, I decided to catalog many of those impressions in my first book, So Smart But .: How Intelligent People Lose Credibility-and How They Can Get it Back.

I was always interested, however, in how some employees made excellent first impressions. It may have been in an interview. It could have been skills shown at a presentation. It very well may have been in a team meeting where ideas were flying around. I knew I was privileged to hear about these stories from some of the world's most discerning and successful executives. I realized I had to share their thoughts, their observations, with as many people as possible. And that has led to The Highflier Handbook: How to Be Seen and Become a Leader at Work.

The interviews you will read in each of these chapters were carefully chosen. "Curated" is a popular descriptor now and I think it applies to how I chose the people I interviewed. They are all Hall of Famers, you might say. I knew I was the keeper of a treasury of ideas offered about highfliers. If any of us were to take a class at which all of my interviewees were speakers, it would be the experience of a lifetime-to say nothing of the fee all of them would so richly deserve. These executives have shown the ability to identify highfliers within their organizations and had experienced being seen as highfliers themselves. They know what it takes. The Highflier Handbook is my way of helping you to become a highflier, too. To that end, along with the interviews you will see the tips and tools (TNTs) I have given to clients to help them all get to the next step along their career path.

"I knew from the start that I was looking at a highflier."

In The Future Leader, Jacob Morgan describes asking CEOs, "How do you define leadership?" He relates their total ambiguity about it. He says, "The most common response was 'Hmmm, nobody's ever asked me that before.'" He adds:

"We just take the concept of a leader for granted and assume that we all know what that looks like and who is a great leader. It's a bit like trying to define water; it sounds silly because, after all, we all know what water is, right? But how would you define water to someone who has never seen it? Would you just say it's a clear tasteless liquid? Dozens of liquids are clear and tasteless. Leadership is the same; it's everywhere in some form and we experience it daily, whether at work, playing sports, watching TV or shopping. It's all around us like air, and as a result we never stop to question what it really is or who a leader is. That's how exasperating books on leadership have come to be. We can't get specifics on how to be one."

-(Morgan 2020)

So many of my conversations with established leaders began when I took a call from one or another about someone they had encouraged to work with me. But these conversations always included a "but." From what I learned working with senior leaders in my earlier years, the "but" they usually talked about always involved (and still does) communication behavior. I wrote all about this in my first book, So Smart But .: How Intelligent People Lose Credibility-and How They Can Get It Back (2006).

I've heard all about what they think leadership looks and sounds like, and it didn't come from interviews. We were very often sitting around and talking about people who worked in their organization. All their stories about impressive people had something to do with communication behavior. It was statements like, "She took the bull by the horns in that meeting and had a no-nonsense quality to her words." Here, in The Highflier Handbook, I'm going to share many more of those discussions in order to make the point that, overwhelmingly, people know a leader when they see or hear one.

Logos, Pathos, Ethos

We all owe our original understanding of what makes people credible, and what doesn't, to Aristotle. Aristotle described the qualities speakers needed to sway the crowd. I learned those qualities as an undergraduate major in Rhetoric and Public Address at West Virginia University (WVU). However, one would be hard pressed to find a discussion of those rhetorical qualities at a college major these days. All the academic programs now are identified as "Communication Studies." In fact, my PhD from the University of Southern California reads exactly that: Communication Studies. It was just a lucky confluence of timing that I...