By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to enhance your persuasive skills with your tone of voice. Reading time: 3:19

You’re at a cocktail party. You scan the room. You can’t hear the individual conversations but you can infer plenty of meaning in the body language and the tone. In fact the most effective leaders religiously regard –and guard -their tone of voice as a key leadership tool.

That’s why the most effective leaders readily acknowledge the validity in the results of a Harvard study that the tone of voice between a doctor and his patient can be as telling as the words they share.

Judging only on the tone of voice and with no information on the skill level of each surgeon, the Harvard study could predict with 95 percent accuracy which surgeons got sued.

Tone is critical in communicating effectively. In fact tone can be five times more important that the words, according to a UCLA study by Albert Mehrebian. He found that communications impact was 55% visual, 38% tone and 7% verbal (actual words spoken). Some Video Gamers even speak Simlish. They can only undersand each other by the tone of voice they use.

Tone is so prevalent that leaders fully embrace and celebrate that tone can thrill. Continue reading →