Micromessaging: Why Great Leadership Is Beyond Words.

Micromessaging: Why Great Leadership Is Beyond Words by Stephen Young, McGraw-Hill, New York, N.Y., 2007, 201 pp. with index, $24.95 softcover

My mother always said, "it's the little things that count the most." In Micromessaging: Why Great Leadership Is Beyond Words, diversity consultant and former Morgan Chase Vice President Stephen Young focuses on one of the hidden barriers to personal success--the subtle, usually subconscious messages leaders send that can either devalue and discourage staff or motivate and empower them.

According to Young, while most of us are unaware of the 2,000-4,000 micromessages leaders send every day, they are the cornerstone that determines long-term performance, employee loyalty and organizational culture.

His premise: No matter what we think we are saying, our facial expressions, tone of voice, hand gestures, choice of words and questions can actually communicate something entirely different. They can reveal a lot about our own--and our colleagues'--biases and preconceived notions.

The first step is to become aware of the micromessages we send and receive, whether they are subtle voice inflections, our choice of matter-of-fact phrases (instead of words showing pride and passion), fidgety hand gestures or vapid facial expressions. Young raises this awareness nicely, but by and large fails to take us to the next step of outlining the details of the change process.

Two to four thousand messages a day is a huge number to track and to try to improve. It would have been instructive had the author been more specific in helping us to prioritize and to plan a way to examine systematically the nuanced behaviors we all use blindly and to modify the destructive ones. Maybe that's the subject of his next book.

Reviewed by Ronald S. Thomas, associate director, Center for Leadership in Education, Towson University, Towson, Md.