Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Public Speaking”
What are the communication skills that an executive leader might need to develop and exhibit?
You might be brilliant, yet if you are unable to convey your messages or understand your people, you will fail as a leader. You are simply brilliant and might make a successful engineer, executive assistant or inventor but not an effective leader.
Where does executive communication start?
Your chief executive officer, CEO, could be the most powerful spokesperson for your organization. The market wants to hear from the leader. Customers and clients want to know the CEO. The media are often eager to interview and quote an effective leader. Is your organization getting the best return on the speaking skills of your leader?
Let’s review the results of a few effective speakers and a couple who were not.
Do you want to own the room? What might that mean? How can you own the room? Owning the room is a feeling of comfort and confidence.
A successful presentation starts with the presenter owning the room. When you know and own the room, you will feel more powerful and confident. That enables more effective and successful presentations for you.
When you are looking for an executive public speaking coach, how do you evaluate your choices? How can you choose the coach that is right for you? Like communication, it’s an imperfect process. Yet, there are principles that you can follow to help you make a better choice.
Like many soft skills there are no hard and fast measures. Instead, it’s subjective which means it can be a difficult decision. For example, if price was your only criteria, the decision would be easy. Pick the cheapest.
Naturally the cheapest solution is to do-it-. yourself. Watch YouTube videos. I’ve found YouTube videos to be helpful when searching for a cooking recipe or how to repair a house electrical or plumbing problem. I’m a handy man so I can follow some of those videos for simple home repairs.
If you are a leader or hope to be a leader in your company, organization or community – your words matter. It matters what you say and were wise enough not to say.
Are you paying attention to your words and implications? Guess what? Your audience pays attention and draws inferences and conclusions from your words. Here are five phrases that are counterproductive to your message because they can confuse or distance your listeners. People might not consciously notice these flaws, but these phrases can cause unconscious dissonance in your message.
Mind your words because they matter. Be precise and prudent with your choice of words. Remove words that are wasted, distracting or annoying.
Your first words are important because your audience is judging you. They are scrolling through questions in their mind:
Should I listen? How long will this take? Do I trust the person? How painful will this be? When will we get to the relevant part? What does this mean to me?
The purpose of your opening is to grab their attention, establish rapport and set the direction.
Most importantly – grab attention. How might you do that?
Pause right before an important point to create suspense and heighten the value of the important point because they need to catch their breath and wait a few seconds for the message.
How to open your presentation
Your first words are important because your audience is judging you. They are scrolling through questions in their mind:
Should I listen? How long will this take? Do I trust the person? How painful will this be? When will we get to the relevant part? What does this mean to me?
The purpose of your opening is to grab their attention, establish rapport and set the direction.
Most importantly – grab attention. How might you do that?
We Can’t Hear You. The next flaw was that we didn’t hear or understand many of his words. Why? He mumbled often. Mumbling is a sign of incomplete thoughts and the lack of editing your words for a clear message.
His voice often trailed off at the end of his sentences. That’s a common mistake made when a speaker is thinking about their next thought instead of finishing the current thought. He wore a lapel microphone and often turned his face away from the mic which meant that his voice faded. That’s a mistake made by novice speakers. He didn’t know how to use a microphone.
Spend more time and effort getting your opening and close right.
When creating your opening and close, consider the possibility that they might only remember these two parts. If that was true, would they have received your intended message? If not, revise your opening and close. The body is the detail, the opening and close provide the motivation and the direction.
