I was having a conversation with a VP-level client at a Fortune 200 company. We were talking about his objective of being a more inspirational leader — right up my alley.

I asked him to think about someone who really inspired him recently, and he suggested the new(ish) CEO of his company. In his first weeks, the CEO gave an inspirational speech to the senior team in which my client suggested he was very “authentic.” I asked, “What made him authentic?”

“Authentic” is defined by Merriam-Webster as, “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character; is sincere and authentic with no pretensions.” As we dissected the experience for my client, we discovered that it was actually impossible to tell whether the CEO was being authentic. Truth be told, given that we had never met this CEO, we had no idea what his personality was or if he was being true to his character. What a revelation!

So, what was this CEO doing that made the experience so inspiring?

He touched on something important to the audience.

The topics the CEO covered were important and meaningful to the audience. He selected thoughts and ideas that had relevance and clearly related to the same things that mattered to those listening. Not everything he said was directly relatable to my particular client, but enough of it had relevance to my client’s day-to-day life.

He made people feel something.