Making the transition into leadership is all well and good but you will still benefit greatly from simply being able to deliver a moving speech, or being able to communicate what people need to do.
Communication is particularly important because it is what will prevent avoidable mistakes. If you are not able to communicate what needs to be done or why, then people will set about completing the wrong task and with the best will in the world, there will be mistakes.
Likewise, charisma and charm will instantly help to convey the passion you have and to get people on board. Your aim is to become a better orator and to better communicate the vision you have for your team and the reasons why it matters.
So how do you go about doing this?
How to Deliver a Great Speech
The first thing to do is to go back and read chapters 1 thru 3. Vision and passion once again come in up top here because they are what will help you to come across as someone who truly believes in what you’re saying.
As soon as you really believe in what you’re saying, this will come across in the way you do everything. It will show in your expression, it will show in the content of what you are saying and it will show in the way you move about up front and gesticulate.
Those gesticulations are important too. This is the way that you move your hands and your body as you speak and when you do it right, it can make a massive difference to how charming and convincing you seem. The most charismatic people in the world all get this right. When you can move your hands around and use big body language, you take up more space which makes people more interested and engaged with what you’re saying. But you also demonstrate more conviction and congruence. This is the opposite of coming across like the shrinking wallflower who is perhaps embarrassed or shy of what they’re saying.
The next thing you can do to demonstrate more confidence in what you’re saying? Slow down! Showing confidence is very important because as mentioned – you are a barometer for the mood of your team. If you panic, then so too will everyone else. If you look confident, then people will have faith in what you’re saying because you have that faith.
Slowing down will instantly help you to come across as more confident because we naturally speak quicker when we’re nervous. What’s more, is that slowing down will make what you’re saying easier to follow, it will give you time to think of your next statement and it will make you appear objectively more intelligent. It even makes your voice sound deeper and helps it to project better.
There’s something else subtle that is going on here too and that’s that speaking too quickly can make you appear like you’re trying to get everything out quickly because you’re not sure people are going to want to listen for long. If you speak very fast, it might seem as though you’re trying to get it all out before you get cut off. This is especially evident when it comes to telling stories: someone very confident who is a natural story teller will start by gradually setting the scene and creating context for their story. They will pause for dramatic effect and they will build up to the big reveals and punch lines. Think back to the people who have held court at parties you’ve been to – they all will have used this effect.
Or instead, try watching the videos of YouTuber Elliot Hulse. He will often start with some kind of question or statement and then leave a deliberate pause – with a gaze that appears to look through the camera before following that statement up. This is powerful stuff and you’ll Leadership Authority 32
find that slowing down like this and introducing silences is nerve wracking at first. That’s exactly why it takes confidence and precisely how it will make you appear more confident if you start employing it as a technique.
Effective Communication
Next up comes communication. This is something a lot of people get wrong but it is definitely one of the most important keys to success in almost every area of life.
So what is good communication?
The answer is that good communication is the ability to convey precise meaning efficiently. Notice that work: efficiently.
Your objective is to convey the exact meaning you want to in the shortest amount of time. This keeps your ‘communication overhead’ lower, so that less time is wasted on meetings and it will also help you to communicate what you need to communicate more efficiently with less margin for error.
This is why it’s a big mistake to use too many big words or too much jargon. Often people do this to try and sound clever when in reality, it just makes them sound insecure – as though they have something to prove. What’s more, is that it makes it harder for some people to understand and wastes people’s time in reading.
So why don’t you just use the fewest words possible and avoid those dramatic pauses entirely? If the only aim is efficiency, then why don’t we all talk like robots?
This is where ‘precision’ comes into the equation. Precision is the ability to convey the exact meaning you want and often this means selecting the right word for the job. Saying ‘it’s cold today’ has a subtly different meaning than saying ‘it’s freezing today’. What’s more, is that the latter conveys more emotion at the same time – and it’s that emotion that helps you to motivate and to make people take action (such as putting on a coat!). Seeing as the word ‘freezing’ actually conveys more information in fewer words, we can safely conclude that this word is actually more ‘efficient’ and thereby the slightly more decorative language in this case was the right choice.
When it comes to the written word, efficiency and accuracy become even more important. Make sure you learn your grammar and punctuation because a comma in the wrong place can equate to thousands of dollars lost!
The Law of Attraction
Another important tip to ensure you come across as more capable and more effective, is to make sure you look the part as well. This might seem shallow but the fact is that people are more inclined to follow others if they look like leaders.
That means you should take care in your presentation – in the way you dress, the way your hair looks and even your physical fitness. This makes you appear more capable altogether and it also makes it look like you care more. And we’ve already seen in detail why caring is so important when it comes to motivating a team.
This all boils down to what is known as the ‘law of attraction’. If you look a certain way and act a certain way, then you will become the person you are already acting like. This is because you will change the way you feel about yourself and you will change the way others see you, therefore changing the way that others treat and respond to you.
As the saying goes: dress for the job you want!
Quick Exercise: How to Become Social Fearless
Some people reading this are going to now be thinking that these instructions sound entirely not like them. Speak slowly and hold center stage. Gesticulate more and make your motions large. Be passionate and driven…
But what if you are naturally shy? What if you freeze up whenever you have to give a talk or even meet someone you don’t know very well? How can you overcome natural shyness in order to be the leader you need to be?
One solution is just to start practicing social confidence – and as it happens, this is something you can learn. If you keep putting yourself in social situations that you find intimidating, you will eventually start to become desensitized to the stress and you’ll stop seeing your heartrate increase and your skin start sweating. You can also combine this with CBT – telling yourself that it really doesn’t matter what people think, as long as you are helping to achieve the goal you believe so much in (just one more reason why it matters to have passion and vision).
One of the very best ways to face this fear and desensitize? Start doing stand-up comedy classes! You’ll very quickly find that you stop feeling anxious when you have to speak with your staff.
Once you do all this and practice building up the level of intimidation, you’ll find you stop feeling nervous and it will change the way you come across in public. Now you’ll seem calm and collected and people will therefore assume you know what you’re talking about and be much happier to follow you!
