[simonw]

One of my favourite perks when I worked at the Guardian is that any employee can go along to the morning editorial meetings. They were absolutely fascinating - a 40 minute meeting where the editorial direction for the day's newspaper is fleshed out, by an extremely smart and well informed group of people, with absolutely nothing dumbed down.

One of the thing that really struck me about those meetings was how Alan Rusbridger, the newspaper's editor, set the tone. He has a relatively quiet voice, and as a result the room stayed quiet enough that you could almost hear a pin drop. When he spoke, everyone listened intently. This influenced the whole meeting - people never spoke over each other, everyone paid full attention and a huge amount of information and discussion was covered effectively in a very short space of time.

[chubot]

I call this the "Godfather" demeanor. It's common among powerful males. I once read an article about a big gang leader in prison and the writer noticed that he had to lean forward to hear what the leader was saying.

They will talk very quietly and unclearly without regard to whether you can hear them or not. When the room is silent and everybody is listening intently, you can't help but think that what they have to say is very important. More so than if they were to speak loudly and solicitously.

It's interesting that Talib is consciously advocating this affectation.

I guess there is a certain kind of leader who gains credibility through actions rather than speech. Some leaders try to rouse you through speech -- e.g. Barack Obama definitely leans on his oratorial skills. Others do the opposite -- Larry Page for example. He mumbles, and he doesn't care to repeat himself. It's everyone else's job to figure out what he's saying.