1. What I gained from my leadership class
William Shakespeare declared: “All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely
players.” I believe the MBA students who are the next generation of leaders must know principals of
stage and theater. Theater enables individuals and groups to enhance their personal authenticity and
professional skills to lead, communicate, and influence on today's challenging business world, which
needs more inspirational leaders. In my opinion, there are many crucial dimensions of being an
authentic and passionate leadership. Some characteristics of successful leaders are the ability to
implement a powerful presentation, to listen carefully, and establish good communication inside and
outside the organization.
Nancy Duarte declared: “the best stories become etched on our hearts, igniting information and
giving it the ability to withstand the test of time.” The first aspect of communication is related to ability
of present ideas by our hearts. Communication will be easy with the help of an appropriate
presentation, which is creating emotional connection to the audience, by a logical and coherent
structure. It means that if we pay attention to make a solid structure that shows relationship between
the parts as a whole, we will transfer meaningful messages. Moreover, storytelling is one of the
solutions that makes a strong framework for presentation. In fact, it can be powerfully persuasive to
audiences and brings extra satisfaction for them. For instance, when I started my job as a marketing
manager in a software company, ten years ago, I understood that although the company had fantastic
solutions for the market, its revenue was not acceptable by board of directors. I did research about why
potential customers did not buy our products, which were the best and very attractive solutions for
them. It was obvious the features of the software were perfect, because when I did research, I found the
products mapped out the market’s needs. The problem related to how the company had presented the
software. I decided to present our goods and services with the help of storytelling presentation. It
helped the company to show how its product will match the customer’s needs. Therefore, our brilliant
product connected to the market by a professional presentation. Although we were a software
company, I omitted PowerPoint files and used a whiteboard to draw some pictures or graphs just in
case. Finally, our sales increased dramatically.
Another important aspect that we should deeply pay attention is who the audiences of our
presentation are. For example, if we know the attitude and the model of thinking of audiences, we can
easily persuade them. Thus we will tune ourselves to the frequency of our audience’s mind, so our idea
will reverberate deeply. For instance, a presentation for a CEO of a company should be different from a

2. presentation for a financial manager. Usually CEOs do not have much time and we must say just the
most important aspects of a subject briefly, and almost some macro cost and benefit analysis which
works for them. On the other hand, financial managers would like to know more details. To sum up, we
as a leaders, managers or presenters must understand and tune ourselves to our stuff, customers or
audiences. In fact, we should choose the best concept which can be totally adapted for our audiences,
and select professional methods to present it.
Second important aspect is related to importance of being an accurate listener. Actually effective
listening, which is the ability of receiving and interpreting messages accurately in the communication
process, is a crucial skill for every leader, and it will guarantee connect them with others successfully. In
fact, without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood, and the speaker will be
easily irritated. Making a conscious effort to hear is one of the best methods to be an active listener.
Indeed, we have to hear not only the words that other people say but also, more importantly, we must
try to understand the complete message which they send. Another way to be an effective listener is
concentration, since the human mind is easily distracted. Furthermore, it is important to focus on the
person who is talking by eye-contact; likewise, making eye-contact is one of the most important tasks of
a presenter. Moreover, trying to understand other people’s point of view is a significant factor of being a
good listener. Indeed, an open-minded personality enables us to empathize with the speaker
completely. Indeed, along good listening skills, it is important to not interrupt any body’s speaking. In
other words, we have to wait until other people stop talking, then we clarify and ensure whether we
have received their message accurately. Thus, it is important to be open-minded to the views and
opinions of others and not distract them. Moreover, we need to get the whole picture, not just isolated
bits and pieces. However, one of the most difficult aspects of listening is the ability to connect different
parts of information together to reveal the main ideas of others. Finally, gestures, facial expressions, and
eye-contact are all very significant in communication. We not only listen with our ears, but also we
listen with our eyes because with eye-contact we are able to pick up the additional information via non-
verbal language. In fact, we should also try to respond to the speaker or lecturer in a way that will both
encourage them to continue speaking, so that they will present more effectively.
Currently, influential leaders and managers know communication skills are very important. In fact,
successful leaders know how to communicate with their employees or team members, and how to steer
them toward their commitments for achieving ultimate goals. One of those applicable methods is Scrum
meeting. Scrum is a way for teams to work together to develop a product, and enables teams to respond
to feedback and change, to build exactly and only what is needed. These meetings are based on team

3. work that all their members are required to attend them and answer three special questions: What did I
do yesterday? What will I do today? Are there any impediments in my way? Using this methodology and
focusing on what each person accomplished yesterday and will accomplish today, the team gains an
excellent understanding of what work has been done and what work remains. Thus it is a meeting in
which team members make commitments to each other, and everyone know that he or she must be
responsible for his or her daily commitments.
Another aspect of being successful manager is related to how to communicate with customers.
Healthy and mature business knows that customers are the most important component of their
business. If a company does not have customers, it cannot be successful. In the last decades of 20th
century companies tried to have a customer service department to connect them with their customers.
This solution at that time worked, but todays’ experiences indicate that every staff member must be a
customer care department since people judge every company by many details. For instance, if a
company makes a fantastic commodity, but the person who is marketing does not know about the
good’s features, customers will not be satisfied. In other words, companies must hire adroit people to
make positive first impression of their company and its products. For example, saying hello with a smile
to customers makes them feel welcome. On the other hand, when an employee doesn't acknowledge
the client, or makes them feel like an inconvenience, that customer immediately feels slighted. Thus,
that negativity causes the customer to refute buying the product, and will make an inconvenient
situation for company. The other important issues are related to people’s Psychological issues. We do
not know what is in the mind of each person, so it is better to not judge without enough information.
Everybody’s mood may be affecting his or her behavior, so we must pay attention to this important
issue. Therefore, communication skill is a key factor in promoting our relationship with the customers.
To sum up, as leaders, we should know how to be a strong presenter for our companies by thinking,
saying ideas through our hearts and using body language. In other words, the mediator between head
and hands must be the heart. Ability to listen to staff, customers, family member and etc. is another
characteristic which every passionate leader must have. Finally, one of the best important missions of
each company must be extra attention to customers who are one of the most important possessions of
every company.
Naser Mousavi, January 2015