There are a wide variety of ways a leader can communicate, all with pros and cons. But when it comes to ensuring that a leader is truly heard and understood, red10 really likes the work of Paul Gisby of Voquinexus who believes there is one medium that can’t be beaten – podcasting.
We ♥ Podcasts
“Podcasting is our passion,” says Paul. “It’s particularly effective where there is a need to go a bit deeper into a subject. We sometimes talk about the podcast ‘going beyond the PowerPoint’, explaining rather than informing.”
Connecting directly no matter where or when
A powerful feature of podcasting is the sense of a direct, some say intimate, connection with the listener – a quality that can only be beaten by face-to-face. But as Paul points out, for many leaders being face-to-face is often not an option. “A lot of clients need to connect and engage with people dispersed across territories and time zones. Podcasting offers a great substitute to face-to-face and has the added advantage of being accessible anywhere, anytime.”
Multiple uses
You can podcast on anything you want of course, so applications are varied; Change Management, leadership development, sharing of cross-site and cross-functional experiences being popular applications for clients of Voquinexus.
Recently, the company has also been doing a lot in the area of ‘experience and wisdom’ capture.
“Organisations build up a huge amount of intellectual capital in their more experienced people. Some of this can be shared in documents. However, when it comes to know-how, as opposed to factual knowledge, hearing an expert tell stories about how their expertise has been applied, is an excellent way of providing a long-lived, easily accessible learning resource.”
Talking Leaders
Earlier this year, Voquinexus launched its own podcast Talking Leaders. “We wanted to promote podcasting as a leadership tool,” Paul explains “and we thought we should practice what we preach. We didn’t just want to deliver a weekly hard sell, so like all the best blogs and newsletters the content of every episode is designed to be interesting and useful to listeners.”
In addition to episodes dealing with the use of podcasting by leaders, Talking Leaders covers other aspects of leadership, particular leadership development. Recently, Scott Eblin the leadership coach and author of The Next Level was featured, and in upcoming episodes other guests will be sharing their experiences and ideas on leadership.
If you would like to check out Talking Leaders yourself you can access it via iTunes (here) or Podbean (here). All episodes are also posted on LinkedIn.