How C-level leadership can use perspective and openness to help create high-value meetings.

Organizations need to have meetings, but are concerned about being scrutinized or criticized by the press or their stakeholders. This is where C-level leadership needs to step up and make a contribution in the creation of high-value meetings. The two leadership qualities that can play a critical role are perspective and openness. Let's take a look at both.

Perspective: Establishing Balance

The double whammy of price and perception in this era of economic downturn is what you must overcome. So take it head on by inviting the media to attend and see for themselves how your meeting adds to the economic recovery. Give them a fresh perspective.

This is where the head of the organization can clear up any distorted perception by pointing out that the event is an investment in the organization's present stakeholders (employees, members, stockholders, suppliers, and customers) and in the future growth of each of these strategic partners.

And it's a great venue for a CEO or president to lay out the numbers:

Meetings support over 1.7 million jobs. Meetings bring in $16 billion in annual tax revenue at the federal, state, and local levels. The meetings industry is the 29th largest contributor to GNP.

A huge part of the economic health of the nation comes from the travel, hospitality, and meetings sectors.

Then outline the intangibles such as carefully describing the value-added factors of your meeting by targeting high-value sessions of information and learning, where everyone leaves with ideas, concepts, and skills to improve and grow personally and as an organization.

In a time of economic crisis, people need training more than ever. Your meeting will play an important role in job retention and is a key to maintaining and maximizing your most valuable asset—your people.

Openness: Generating Integrity

This is where a CEO's personal accessibility plays a vital role. His or her openness will take more time and energy than any other part they will play in the meeting. However, the benefit can be huge because it generates enormous integrity for this individual as the leader of the organization. At the meeting be sure your CEO is accessible to the press before, during, and after the event. Go beyond the usual press releases or formal vehicles to communicate. Let the members of the media know the CEO is open to questions and will speak with them personally.

For the attendees as a whole, the CEO should make a presentation that clearly reinforces and answers the four questions that are uppermost on everyone's mind during this economic downturn: What do we stand for? Where are we today? Where are we going? Where do I fit in?

When you openly reinforce an inclusive vision that includes a sense of personal contribution and community, you directly impact lives, the success of your organization, and your authenticity as a leader.

During the Event

Just as with the press, the organization's leaders should announce their openness and availability to all attendees for questions and answers. Let it be known that they are available to speak with anyone. Face time with executives and decision makers is needed now more than ever.

Give your leaders paper and a pen so that they can record important ideas they hear or questions that need to be answered after the event.

Have them attend breakout sessions and walk around the halls meeting and greeting all attendees. Leaders should mingle with the people who are on the front lines of the enterprise. They will be amazed at what useful things they'll hear. Plus, this kind of accessibility creates invaluable camaraderie in these times of stress and financial uncertainty.

Get Out In Front

When an organization maximizes the two leadership qualities of perspective and openness, it will be far less likely to be criticized by the media, stockholders, or the general public.

In tough times your leadership plays a crucial role in calming fears. When you gather staff, customers, and constituents together in order to reassure and educate, you give everyone the courage to hang on, to move ahead, and to do their best.

Your organization's upper management will be counted as leaders who are out in front, preparing their followers for the economic recovery. This will give a company a competitive edge and put it in a position to increase business, give better service, and find answers to unsolved problems.

Based on the new book, A New Breed of Leader: 8 Qualities That Matter Most in the Real World ... What Works, What Doesn't and Why (Berkley, March 2009), by Sheila Murray Bethel, PhD, global leadership expert, best-selling author, Hall of Fame Speaker. She can be reached at www.bethelinstitute.com.

Originally published July 1, 2009

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