‘Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.’

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon

This chapter covers:

• the definition of personal branding and why it is important to consider yourself as a product
• the process of building your brand by walking your talk
• the importance of keeping your leadership brand current
• the notion of charisma and gravitas and how to build them using clothing, body language, vocabulary.

Why are these examples relevant to the concept of a leadership brand? Well, establishing your leadership brand requires you to package what makes you unique and make this resonate with your environment, as Hitler managed to do. You also need to be disciplined and consistent in your behaviours so others register or ‘store’ you in the way that you want, as the concept of heuristics demonstrates.

To develop your leadership brand, you will need to mix self-questioning and feedback, with tangible actions and integrate the notions of charisma and gravitas.

Building a powerful leadership brand

The concept of a ‘leadership brand’ is ultimately about making others see your value and allowing you to focus your actions on what will help you deliver on it.

Developing your leadership brand requires you to analyse what it is you want to be known for and want to stand for, while taking into consideration what you know about yourself. It also invites you to understand what leadership means in your organisation.

To adequately build your leadership brand, you need to follow the same approach of self-questioning, calibrating this with feedback and focusing on a tangible action plan that has been outlined in previous chapters.

‘I am honest in everything I do, I have a can-do attitude and I am known to be a good coach and push people to develop into the best they can do. I want my peers and my bosses to associate who I am with efficiency and execution. So I invest time in not only creating networks but also making sure everything that is thrown at me is treated with the highest quality level possible.’

Camilla Hartvig, Country President for AstraZeneca, Spain

This executive knows exactly what perception of herself she wants people to take away after meeting her. She also knows what perception she needs to create in order to continue her career journey onwards and upwards.

To aim towards achieving this level of self-awareness, it is important to look both inside yourself and around yourself. Being aware of how people perceive you and to act on their feedback will help you to develop. Investing time in developing a consistent and actionable approach is the ultimate step towards building a powerful leadership brand for yourself.

Looking inside yourself

This is about leveraging your self-awareness and translating it into dimensions, actions or attributes that will allow you to be perceived as a leader. While it may involve focusing on your ability to deliver or execute, it might also be more geared towards softer attributes, such as demonstrating empathy or the ability to influence your internal and external stakeholders.

To look inside yourself, try answering the following questions:

• What do I want to achieve?
• What do I wish to be known for?
• What do I want people to say about me?

The first question will enable you to ground your brand in delivery and address the needs of different groups. To answer it, think about how you can add value to what your customers, stakeholders, employees or investors need or want. Consider what you can do to meet their expectations, but also what they need from you.

The second question will allow you to work on how people perceive you. To answer it, look at the list of possible attributes below and pick three to six that you can or want to make yours.

• Analytical
• Approachable
• Assertive
• Attentive
• Benevolent
• Bold
• Bright
• Calm
• Caring
• Charismatic
• Clever
• Collaborative
• Committed
• Compassionate
• Competent
• Concerned
• Confident
• Confrontative
• Conscientious
• Considerate
• Consistent
• Creative
• Curious
• Decisive
• Dedicated
• Deliberate
• Dependable
• Determined
• Diplomatic
• Disciplined
• Driven
• Easy-going
• Efficient
• Emotional
• Energetic
• Enthusiastic
• Even-tempered
• Fast
• Flexible
• Focused
• Forgiving
• Friendly
• Fun-loving
• Good listener
• Happy
• Helpful
• Honest
• Hopeful
• Humble
• Independent
• Innovative
• Insightful
• Inspired
• Interactive
• Intelligent
• Intimate
• Inventive
• Kind
• Lively
• Logical
• Loving
• Loyal
• Nurturing
• Optimistic
• Organised
• Outgoing
• Passionate
• Patient
• Peaceful
• Pensive
• Persistent
• Personal
• Playful
• Pleasant
• Polite
• Positive
• Pragmatic
• Prepared
• Proactive
• Productive
• Quality-orientated
• Reality-based
• Religious
• Respectful
• Responsible
• Responsive
• Results-orientated
• Satisfied
• Savvy
• Self-confident
• Selfless
• Sensitive
• Service-orientated
• Sincere
• Sociable
• Straightforward
• Thorough
• Thoughtful
• Tireless
• Tolerant
• Trusting
• Trustworthy
• Unyielding
• Values-driven.

The third question will help you to construct a tangible action plan at a later stage. It will translate your thoughts into actions and ensure you demonstrate what it is you want to be known for.

Looking around yourself

This is the second critical step towards adequately defining your leadership brand. It involves looking around you so that, ultimately, you can be in a position where you can harmoniously mesh who you are with the organisational culture in which you are operating.

To do this, you need to observe and absorb the culture around you. In other words, establish what it is you need to demonstrate to become a respected leader within that culture.

So, reflect on the following question.

• What are the perceived attributes of a leader in my organisation?

This is helpful for gauging what you should aim to become and assessing the potential stretch necessary, given your natural aptitudes and abilities. To do this, you can look for leadership models in your organisation. Who are these people, what behaviours do they demonstrate, what have they achieved and how can you emulate them?

The corporate culture part of this step is very important to bear in mind, but especially when you are changing company or even moving from one part of the organisation another.

So, if you want to be perceived as a respected leader, you will need to demonstrate different skill sets and attributes that align with the corporate culture in which you are operating.

Testing and recalibrating your brand

There is a saying that ‘people’s perceptions are their reality’. Testing how your leadership brand works in your environment is critical. This is because how you see it and how others see it can differ, so it is important to expose your brand to others to check whether or not your perceptions are correct and recalibrate if necessary. Gathering feedback to make your brand more effective is the objective. It is recommended that you look for feedback within your organisation and reach out to external sources as well.

Internally

For truly comprehensive feedback, a good sample size is required. Consider making a list of seven to ten people you trust and respect in the following professional groups:

• peers
• team members
• major stakeholders
• managers
• mentors.

It is a good idea to add a couple of people from your personal network to this list for a balanced perspective and see how your corporate persona fits with who you really are.

With each member of your feedback group, present and discuss:

• the attributes you have chosen for yourself
• ask them if these are qualities that you demonstrate and/or whether or not they are traits that someone in your particular leadership position should demonstrate
• your leadership catchphrase
• ask if this is truly representative of you, if they would feel comfortable saying this about you and/or if there is something missing that should be added.

Based on the feedback received, rework some or all of your leadership statement. Authenticity is an important trait in a leader, so if you feel that some of the feedback does not ring true for you, try to slip into the shoes of the person who gave you that feedback and replay some of your behaviours. If you conclude that your behaviour was more circumstances driven than rooted in the core of who you are – qualify the feedback.

Externally

You may also consider speaking with external stakeholders, such as customers or investors. As this can appear awkward and put you in a vulnerable position, consider shifting the focus of the exercise. Do not ask for direct feedback, but give it a data-gathering format instead. Ask them what their expectations are, what attributes they expect to see in a person in your position and if they see you demonstrating them.

The questioning and feedback phases can be sequenced in any way that you feel comfortable with, as long as you consider both the personal and external dimensions and recalibrate your brand as required in an iterative process.

Developing a consistent and actionable approach

In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell presents a new way of understanding why, at times, change happens as quickly and unexpectedly as it does. He describes what we could call a ‘recipe’ codifying how change happens. One element presented in the book is the ‘stickiness’ factor – that is, the attributes that give a particular message impact and prevent it from going in one ear and out the other. Gladwell likens such messages to catchy songs that you cannot get out of your head.

How can you make your leadership brand stick? By developing concrete actions and being disciplined about it.

Concrete actions

Bringing your leadership brand to life really comes down to taking action and committing to exhibiting certain behaviours. It should be evident in the way you make decisions, choices and communicate. For every attribute you have decided to include in your leadership catchphrase, write down the tangible behaviours required and the action you need to take to make them happen.

Also reflect on the specific language you should start to use to get your message across and create the right perceptions of you. Only a mix of actions and ways of communicating will get you the results you need and allow your environment to experience the leadership brand you have or want to develop.

Here are some examples of things you can do to master this process.

• You want to be known as a reliable leader ‘Reliable’ means that there are no surprises in terms of either your behaviour or expected outcomes. Consider doing the following:
  • always be on time for meetings
  • do not cancel at the last minute – if you are forced to, reschedule promptly
  • make a point of not missing deadlines
  • if you absolutely cannot avoid missing a deadline, give plenty of notice and agree in advance when you will deliver.
• You want to be known as a nurturing leader ‘Nurturing’ means paying attention to people’s development and encouraging their personal growth. Consider doing the following:
  • multiplying mentoring opportunities
  • regularly scheduling coaching sessions with your top talent
  • systematically sharing knowledge (sharing your notes on leadership team meetings or preparing digests of your reading on economic trends or technological advances in one of your fields, for example)
  • making a point of inviting renowned speakers on relevant topics to your team meetings (for example, industry experts or innovation experts).
• You want to be known as results-orientated leader ‘Results-orientated’ means you meet your objectives and push performance. Consider doing the following:
  • do not miss deadlines and ensure your team does the same
  • in meetings, make a point of asking tangible questions, such as ‘When can this be delivered?’ or ‘What is a realistic deadline for this?’
  • in meetings, also make a point of bringing the conversation back to tangibility, focusing on questions such as, ‘What are we really trying to achieve?’ and ‘What will the impact be on the bottom line?’

Being disciplined

Be consistent in your behaviours and sustain this for the long term. Heuristics is the term used for the human need to identify predictable patterns of behaviour in the world around us (facts), which then allow us to react to instances of these without having to analyse them each time. By establishing and maintaining a consistent brand, you can take advantage of this evolutionary mechanism that is hardwired into all of us.

Consistency is critical when you either want to create a particular perception of you or change people’s perceptions of your leadership brand. Once you have defined the actions and vocabulary that will convey your newly identified leadership brand, ensure you demonstrate them. Consistently use your chosen words in your interactions.

As a leader or aspiring leader, your impact will be measured as much by your behaviour in the most mundane situations – the fact that you say, ‘Good morning’ to everyone or walk into the office with a smile – as in the more obvious ones – such as in team meetings or in one-on-ones with your boss.

Habits will make this perfect, but living and breathing your leadership brand will require discipline from you and constant awareness.

Keeping your brand current

Once you have invested time and effort in building your leadership brand, you also need to keep it alive, as you are evolving and so is your environment.

Environments change ever so rapidly – people even more so. All experiences and challenges will shape you as a leader or future leader. Success and failure alike will have an impact on you. Never take your leadership brand for granted, never forget the essence of the leader you want to be or the leader you want other people to see. If you do, you will probably let it slide and will have to start from scratch again. Maintaining your leadership brand is an ongoing process, by consciously thinking about it, it will help it become part and parcel of your leadership DNA.

Keeping the adjectives ‘disciplined’ and ‘iterative’ in mind will help greatly.

Disciplined

When it comes to your leadership brand, be deliberate in what you do and ensure you maintain momentum and focus on your actions.

This can be achieved by factoring in some kind of review mechanism with either your feedback group or on your own to keep your eye on the ball. Timing a review of your leadership brand with the performance evaluation process of the organisation can be a good way to go about it.

Iterative

You will never stop evolving, changing and adjusting – never expect to be finished! It has been demonstrated that leaders with the self-awareness and drive to evolve their leadership brand continuously are more likely to succeed in the long term than those who don’t.

To keep you plugged in and evolving, you need to be able to quickly assess the following:

• how effective you are at delivering on your leadership brand strategy
• what it is you need to do – if anything – to readjust your course of action and deliver on your own promises
• whether your leadership brand is still current vis-à-vis who you have developed into, the role you are in or growing into and what the environment requires of you.

It is important not only to measure progress made but also assess what you want to keep focusing on to further enhance your brand or any new elements you want to start integrating to remain competitive or match up to a potential new job or career change.

This toolkit may be useful in times of crisis, when your leadership brand is no longer yielding the results you expect. Equally, if a negative chain of events has tainted your leadership brand, start with the questioning (see page 46), gather feedback, craft and deliver an action-orientated plan and get back on track.

It can also have great impact when you embark on your brand transition – in other words, when you are using a career change to reinvent yourself.

In the Harvard Business Review article (March 2011) ‘Spotlight on landing the next big job: Reinventing your personal brand’, Dorie Clark presents five key steps for any personal rebranding:

1. define your destination and acquire the necessary skills
2. craft a unique selling proposition and distinguish yourself by leveraging your points of difference
3. develop a narrative that describes your transition in terms of the value it offers to others
4. re-introduce yourself using digital media and seize opportunities to showcase your capabilities
5. prove your worth by establishing and promoting your track record.

It would be interesting to integrate these into any new brand building exercise. Be aware that traces of your old brand may linger, but a carefully considered strategy and the ability to create unique value in your changed role will help your new brand stick.

The best example of the power of rebuilding a brand remains Michael Milken, who was once best known as a 1980s high-flyer, jailed for securities violations. However, his long-term efforts have dramatically redeemed his reputation. In the course of more than three decades of committed philanthropy, he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to combat prostate cancer, melanoma, epilepsy and more, earning him a 2004 Fortune cover story – and huge rebrand – as ‘The man who changed medicine’.

What, then, is it important to keep in mind?

The essence of the influences on your leadership brand are expressed in Figure 5.1.

Your leadership brand needs to be rooted in what comes naturally to you, based on your natural strengths. It also needs to serve a purpose and deliver something to the different groups you want to lead.

This leads on to the fact that your leadership brand has to be authentic. There is no point in claiming traits that you do not believe you can truly exhibit, even if you stretch yourself. That is why gathering and analysing feedback can be incredibly insightful.

Building a leadership brand requires investments of time and patience. Consider setting aside one to two hours to comprehensively reflect on your personal brand in order to kick-start the process. It is preferable to do this outside the office, when you have the opportunity to pause and think. It is also important to find the most appropriate environment and timing (refer back to the advice given in Chapter 4).

You will not always see results straight away and, at times, you will have to fight the temptation to go back to your old habits. You might feel as if you are behaving artificially and be discouraged by this, but it is entirely natural and to be expected. Just keep things in perspective and recommit to your personal development.

It can take three to six months for you to see the results of your newly established leadership brand. After this time you should experience a ‘tipping’ point in people’s interactions with you based on your new attributes – then you will know that you have made an impact. When in doubt, remember that a strong leadership brand is a key element of corporate success.

Brand accelerators: charisma and gravitas

Charisma and gravitas are powerful accelerators when you are building your leadership brand. They are part of what gives you presence and impact. Many people might argue that you cannot teach anyone how to have charisma or demonstrate gravitas, as they are an intrinsic part of an individual, but, by paying attention to the way you carry and present yourself, and communicate, you will be able to prove otherwise.

‘Charisma’ is usually defined as a mix of charm and grace. It is the ability to draw people towards you without demonstrating any type of authority. Typically, political and religious leaders demonstrate significant charisma. Think of Barack Obama, Steve Jobs or Mother Teresa. Charisma is usually perceived as inherent, rather than cultivated or taught.

‘Gravitas’ is associated with an impression of weight, influence or authority. It relates to sobriety, seriousness and maturity. Someone with gravitas is someone whose words you want to listen to, someone who inspires trust and respect. Consider Warren Buffett, Jack Welch or George Soros. Gravitas could be considered to stem from nurture rather than nature.

In order to grasp the diverse forms charisma and gravitas can take, the following examples might help:

• Jeffrey Immelt The current CEO of General Electric is over 6 feet tall. He played American football in college and is still very athletic. When he enters the room or is about to speak, everything stops for a split second. When he is listening to a pitch, you can almost see how fast his brain is processing the information.
• Tan Chong Men Former Executive Vice President, Global Business-to-Business & Lubricants, Shell Downstream, a part of the Royal Dutch Shell Group, now Group Chief Executive Officer of the Port of Singapore Authority, is a Chinese Malaysian of average height. He radiates calmness and serenity and is very softly spoken, but, make no mistake, his brain is swift and he has the uncanny ability to cut through complexity and pinpoint the right angle and the question you simply had not thought of. He motivates and inspires people with his visionary mind and sensible, down-to-earth problem solving pragmatism.
• Gerard Lopez Founder of Mangrove Capital Partners, owner of the Lotus Formula One team is extremely tall. He will make a point of waiting for you to come to him when you meet him for the first time to carefully manage the power balance. In meetings, he does not say much, but listens intensely – he is processing every possible angle to find any potential flaw in the reasoning. When it is his turn to speak, he makes decisions very quickly and is known for his strategic thinking.
• Clara Gaymard The current Vice President of General Electric International, she is a petite, slender, beautiful woman. Her smile is always engaging and she is extremely approachable. She is the type of leader who will come in person to greet you and escort you to the meeting room when you are meeting with her.

There are two main points that are universally true when it comes to charisma and gravitas:

• they require an understanding of the power of your physical presence and demeanour – how you carry yourself, how you present yourself and the way you dress – and how to use it
• they require that you pay attention to the ways in which you are communicating – this is, mainly, how you speak and when you choose to speak.

How to make the most of your physical presence

Studies have shown that physical attributes such as height and attractiveness play a part in whether or not you are perceived to have leadership potential.

A study carried out by Erik Lindqvist of the Stockholm School of Economics for the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in May 2010 underscored the relationship between height and leadership. Using data from a representative sample of Swedish men, the study found that tall men are significantly more likely to attain managerial positions than short men. An increase in height of 10 centimetres (3.94 inches) is associated with a 2.2 percentage point increase in the probability of holding a managerial position. Selection for managerial positions explains about 15 per cent of the unconditional height–pay premium. However, at least half of the height–leadership correlation is due to people perceiving there to be a positive correlation between height and cognitive ability.

What does this mean? The taller you are, the more intelligent people will perceive you to be or the more commanding people will believe you to be.

Why? Because in our primal brain, height is still synonymous with strength, hence increasing the chance of survival of the group. Height, therefore, even now, is considered synonymous with intrinsic leadership ability.

If you are not naturally tall, you can always wear shoes that make you look taller. However, you may find that there are other ways to compensate – by, say, carrying yourself with a lot of authority or demonstrating a great deal of energy.

Using body language well or even the way you dress can help you to create your leadership presence or establish your leadership potential. This is particularly important when you are meeting people for the first time. Princeton University research confirms the old saying that, ‘You‘ll never have a second chance to make a first impression.’² People evaluate others in the first tenth of a second of their initial meeting. This means establishing your leadership potential from the start is critical.

The following six principles are easy to remember and can create an immediate positive impact:

1. Always walk into a room confidently, commanding as much space as possible. This will create a perception of self-confidence and assurance.
2. Always introduce yourself with a firm handshake. It will put you in a position of calm assertiveness and power.
3. Always maintain good eye contact when you introduce yourself. Consider maintaining good eye contact at all times. This creates an impression of openness, commands trust and establishes your self-confidence.
4. Don’t ‘over-smile’. Although it sounds counter-intuitive, charisma and gravitas require a certain element of aloofness at first. Being perceived as too helpful or approachable can hinder your credibility as a potential leader.
5. While in a meeting, make sure you sit comfortably on your chair. Stay calm and poised. This will convey a feeling of you being comfortable in your own skin and self-assurance about your ability to cope with anything. Control your body at all times. Do not fidget or play with a pen or with your hair. Stillness and natural tranquillity create an impression of authority.
6. If someone says something that particularly resonates with you, make a point to nod. Showing that you are listening intensely and subtly expressing your opinion will help build your credibility.

If you are a woman, consider the following additional things.

7	Sweep back your hair from your face to ensure that people can see your features clearly. This will lead to you being perceived as self-confident and self-assured.
8	Keep make-up subtle or to a minimum. This will be perceived as a sign of self-confidence in your intellectual abilities.

Effective power dressing

The way you dress is also a key factor in establishing your leadership presence. Humans are visual beings and image counts. In the absence of other relevant information, people will look for visual clues as to how a person regards him- or herself and how professional he or she seems. The way you dress helps establish your credibility and your brand. This is all part of creating your corporate persona and establishing your potential.

Most personal coaches recommend dressing for the job you want, not for the job you have. How, then, do you identify the dress code for leadership material? How do you reconcile embodying the leadership traits of your corporate culture with dressing for leadership (power dressing, if you will)?

For instance, would you be perceived as a credible leader wearing a dark pinstripe suit to see a company such as Google or Facebook? At the opposite end of the spectrum, would you be considered leadership material at a private bank or wealth management company in chinos and a polo shirt?

This is a difficult balance to strike. However, adhering to the following two rules may help.

• Dressing for a leadership position means dressing to command power and in a sophisticated way. It does not necessarily mean dressing conservatively. Even if most dark colours (grey, black, navy blue) do fit the profile, they are not the only ones. Consider wearing red accents if you want to make a statement of power or more neutral colours if you are in the role of observer.
• Dress in accordance with your sector and appropriately for the occasion. If you have team meetings or customer meetings, consider dressing in a way that fits in with their culture as well. If you were visiting Google, you would not wear a suit. If you are giving a presentation or going to be sitting for most of the day, wear comfortable shoes and clothes in a material that does not wrinkle. Overall, remember that it is always better to be slightly overdressed than underdressed.

Charismatic communication

It’s not only what you say, but how you say it that will establish you as someone with gravitas and charisma.

It is important to start by being perceived as knowledgeable and insightful. This is about inspiring respect, trust and demonstrating a certain calm.

Additionally, visuals and words go hand in hand, so what people say verbally about themselves will then either support or contradict the initial visual impression, not the other way around.

Investing time in becoming the best communicator you can be is the final key element to consider when honing your charisma and gravitas. This can be achieved when thinking about the following seven attributes for all occasions:

1. Preparation Always be prepared and knowledgeable about your area. Invest time in researching facts to sustain your vision and ensure that you are crystallising one theme at a time. Allocate enough time for rehearsal and practise question and answer sessions.
2. The library analogy Always use a deep tone of voice when expressing yourself, as if you were talking in the middle of a library. The brain associates deep voices with the notion of authority.
3. Slow your pace down This will give the impression of you being in control and create a greater sense of gravitas.
4. Master your language Even today, Winston Churchill remains the leading example of the true master of communication. His lessons can be boiled down to the following four elements:
   • use the right words: when addressing an audience, invest time in thinking about what you really mean and what words would most concisely, practically and elegantly express your vision
   • use rhythm: think in terms of musicality, repeat your statements out loud, talk to yourself, using pauses and silence to create impact
   • use analogies: they help clarify, simplify and make the point – proverbs can also be useful
   • engage emotionally: ‘For an audience to cry, the speaker must feel pain.’ Engaging emotionally also entails identifying with your audience. Find themes and stories that will resonate with them; these might refer to common history or historical figures, heroes, and so on.
5. Establish a credible verbal presence Avoid starting your sentences with expressions of doubt, such as, ‘I guess it might’ or ‘I could be wrong, but …’. Speak confidently and use hard data to prove your points.
6. Less is more Use the time you have to speak wisely. It is not about how much you say, but the impact you have when you say something. When in meetings, consciously allocate yourself a certain numbers of interventions and interact when the topic matters the most.
7. Walk the room Learn how to ‘walk a room’, moving fluidly from one person to another. Being interested in everyone is part of building your leader’s persona. At all times, give your undivided attention to the person you are talking to. In that moment, you need to make him or her feel like the most important person in the world. This will allow you to connect with that person, creating the level of trust needed.

Charisma and gravitas will come more naturally to some than others, but they can be built on and will help you strengthen your leadership brand.

Summary

Building an effective leadership brand can actually be summed up in one word: energy. It has been proven that the most successful people are usually the most energetic. Think about how to create energy around you in the way you talk, listen, interact with and connect with people.

Branding demands commitment – to continual reinvention, striking chords with people to stir their emotions and to imagination.

Here’s a reminder of some of the key points from this chapter:

• human beings need to categorise the world around them and put people into boxes – proactively building your leadership brand will allow you to build your own box and be in control
• even if it is important to take your environment into consideration, authenticity should prevail – remaining true to yourself is key (keep in mind the self-awareness developed in Chapter 3)
• build a brand that you can deliver on, being realistic about what you can deliver, even if this does include some stretching of your current abilities, and pay particular attention to your strengths, what you want to be known for and how this meshes with the expectations of your environment
• take proactive steps to develop and then live your brand, such as using your feedback group and your leadership statement
• your leadership brand should not be static – it will evolve with you and your experiences – make sure you regularly reflect on progress and changes you need to make
• charisma and gravitas are elements of leadership that can be worked on by attending to the way you carry yourself, and how you dress and communicate
• dress for success and the occasion, always adjusting to the environment and keeping the purpose of the meeting in mind, dress impeccably – overdressing is better than underdressing – and do not shy away from colours – they can make a very positive statement
• think about how you say what you say – lower your tone of voice, pause and use your time wisely – invest time in preparing any communication and make a point of looking for the right word – your use of language should be pristine
• do not be afraid to ask professional consultants and advisers to maximise or leverage your body language, dress code and oratorical skills.

¹ Walter Kiechel (2005) in ‘What you can learn from Jack Welch’, The Results-driven Manager: Becoming an effective leader. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

² J. Willis and A. Todorov (2006) ‘First impressions: Making up your mind after 100-ms exposure to a face’, Psychological Science, July, 17(7): 592–8.

³ Coco Chanel, French fashion designer, Founder of the Chanel brand.

⁴ Chris Abbott (2010) 21 Speeches that Shaped our World, Rider, is – a good source of powerful and inspiring speeches. So is the website www.voicegig.com