Recommendation
Peter Andrei shows you how to emulate the speaking skills of successful leaders by mastering 10 steps for communicating more effectively. He teaches you to think through your communication processes. Use powerful words. Be direct. Master the three languages of communication: verbal, body language and tone. And, boost your appeal with memorable words and phrases. Andrei provides a wealth of useful information and illustrates his techniques with helpful examples.
Take-Aways
- Persuasive leaders use 10 tools for effective public speaking:
- Start with a strong framework – Position your goal as a solution to your audience’s problems.
- Choose the right terminology – Engage your audience by speaking inclusively.
- Shape your message carefully – Be sure you are saying what you mean.
- Control your tone of voice – Develop mastery over how you pronounce and emphasize words.
- Heed your body language – Use deliberate, meaningful movement and gestures.
- Appeal to your audience members – Repeat certain words and phrases that resonate with them.
- Offer compelling visual material – Use images and text that bolster your verbal message.
- Provide a hook – Capture your audience’s attention.
- Be eloquent – Build a persuasive message.
- Brighten your attitude – Develop a positive mind-set.
Summary
Persuasive leaders use 10 tools for effective public speaking.
The world’s most engaging leaders have extraordinary communication skills. They can create mass movements by taking an idea they believe in and convincing others to adopt it. These leaders can make people act in particular ways and shape how they live. They communicate their faith in themselves, their concepts and their perceptions of the future. Such individuals wield extraordinary power because they can win in the only arena that matters: the battle of ideas.
Even the most dynamic leaders need supporters, and garnering supporters requires being able to communicate effectively. To have the effect you desire on others, you must present your thoughts clearly and compellingly and generate enthusiasm. An ineffective presentation undermines the persuasiveness of your ideas, but you can transmit information in a way that moves other people if you master the 10 key building blocks of forceful, persuasive public speaking.
Start with a strong framework – Position your goal as a solution to your audience’s problems.
To present yourself as a problem solver, describe a situation you resolved and highlight how your efforts enabled a brighter future. While campaigning to become the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020, former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg [now US Secretary of Transportation] carefully explained how he led the city and helped it overcome its challenges.
In 1963, during Buttigieg’s youth, the Studebaker automobile manufacturer collapsed, devastating South Bend’s economy. Businesses abandoned their buildings, and people abandoned their homes. For 50 years, merely keeping the city functioning took enormous energy. The population declined. Many young people left, though some returned.
When Buttigieg decided to run for mayor in 2011, he knew South Bend would never see a business like Studebaker again. However, he believed that with fortitude and the ability to envision something different for itself, his town could have a better future. Today, the city is a model of economic recovery. Contemporary companies invested there, creating thousands of new jobs.
“Life here is far from perfect. But we’ve changed our trajectory, and shown a path forward for communities like ours…And that’s why I’m here today. To tell a different story.” (Pete Buttigieg)
Buttigieg recognized that traditional leaders were selling a tall tale to weakened cities and communities like South Bend – a myth suggesting they could rebuild by returning to the practices of the past. By contrast, he suggested striving for something new. While campaigning, he compared South Bend’s previous problems with its present prosperity and forward-looking expectations.
He responds gladly to curiosity about how he turned the city around. The young mayor inspired confidence in his approach by highlighting its potential effectiveness. To use this strategy, explore the issues your audience members face. Describe how you – or someone else connected to the audience – faced a similar challenge. Build a narrative. Outline how the situation felt as it unfolded. Explain how leaders helped make things better. Show your audience how they can follow a similar path by building on your ideas.
Choose the right terminology – Engage your audience by speaking inclusively.
Some people undermine their communication efforts by using exclusive language and insider jargon. To increase your audience’s receptivity, use inclusive terminology to create a sense of collective involvement. Use pronouns, like “we” and “our” that include the people in your audience in your ideas.
“Put yourself and the audience on the same team,’ subtly forming a psychological coalition: A tribe. They subtly implicate you as the spokesperson for this team.”
Former president Bill Clinton repeatedly used “we” when discussing economic growth and education. He suggested that the United States hadn’t invested sufficient money and effort in its people, resulting in slow wage growth and fewer new jobs in the private sector. By using inclusive pronouns, Clinton created a sense of camaraderie with his audience. Appoint yourself as your audience members’ representative. Draw the audience into your message. Whenever possible, change “you” to “we.”
Shape your message carefully – Be sure you are saying what you mean.
Link the possibility of a brighter future to your message. Lyndon Johnson, who because president of the United States in 1963, presented a vision of a Great Society he hoped to turn into reality. His vision involved reconstructing cities, reinvigorating rural areas and rebuilding the US education system.
Johnson estimated the United States would see its population explode in the half-century after his speech and that most of its citizens would live in cities. He highlighted the need to construct housing and infrastructure, adding additional capacity that would rival what the country had built since its inception. Johnson’s plan envisioned the reconstruction of urban America over a period of 40 years.
“People act to prevent pain or produce pleasure. But they have to first predict whether an action will produce the promised pleasure or prevent the foreshadowed pain.”
Johnson outlined the problems his Great Society programs were designed to conquer: The centers of many cities faced decline; many suburbs lacked infrastructure; and urban growth had eroded community trust and left people with little access to natural spaces. Johnson contrasted this picture with his vision of a better future which, he argued, could emerge from America’s cities.
People want to avoid suffering. They like to engage in activities that bring them contentment. If you want to use an aspirational approach, as Johnson did, present a plan that highlights the benefits of your goal and of working to achieve it. Your audience wants to know that your proposal will bring them more pleasure than pain. Focus on building trust and belief in your idea. Without trust, no matter how well conceived or well-intentioned your plan, you won’t make any progress.
Control your tone of voice – Develop mastery over how you pronounce and emphasize words.
How you speak is just as important as what you say. Even if you use powerful words, an effective structure and an exciting message, you could fail if your voice does not entice your audience.
Adapt your speaking style to highlight the meaning of words, phrases and sentences by how your emphasize them. This tells your listeners what parts of your message you consider critical and which ideas deserve their focus.
“It subconsciously imparts the following meaning: this word, this idea, this concept, this unit of meaning – this deserves all your attention; this is what it’s all about; this is the essential idea; this is the key; focus on it now.”
To achieve this effect, raise the volume of your voice at important moments or adapt your pitch to make highpoints sound distinct from the rest of the message. Change the pace of your delivery; exaggerate the sound of a vowel or pause after you say something significant.
Heed your body language – Use deliberate, meaningful movement and gestures.
Minute variations in body language alter your message. Your gestures, facial expressions, posture, eye movements and the placement of your hands convey implicit messages which may or may not serve your cause. Control your body language – including where your eyes focus and the position of your palms – to ensure that you deliberately convey your intended meaning.
“Cock back your shoulders. Gesture by your sides, not in front of your torso (at least most of the time). Keep your arms moderately wide; not stuck right up against your body, not stretched out like airplane wings, but somewhere in between, seemingly giving your torso breathing room.”
Master an open stance. People equate an open stance with affability, composure and ease with others. By contrast, people equate a closed stance with ineptitude, lack of confidence and frailty. Never turn away from your audience. Don’t hunch over. Don’t obstruct your torso as you make gestures. Keep your arms neither spread wide nor tightly positioned beside your body, but somewhere in between.
Appeal to your audience members – Repeat certain words and phrases that resonate with them.
The use and repetition of certain words and phrases increases your appeal. Certain keywords and phrases engage with specific parts of the human psyche. They trigger feelings and emotions that draw people to you and your ideas.
“Certain words carry inherent appeal. Why? Because they inherently imply a sentiment deeply attractive to humans. The examples are countless. But some power words are more powerful than others.”
Speakers use many such words and phrases. For example, you can use forceful words that promise certainty such as “Scientifically proven. Undeniably, unequivocally and unambiguously proven. Guaranteed.”
Offer compelling visual material – Use images and text that bolster your verbal message.
Most executives rely on presentations to support their presentations. However, many executives make the same mistakes repeatedly in their language or their visuals, and that undercuts the strength of their messages. Needlessly dense or convoluted language on your slides distracts your audience.
“Ask yourself this question: If I could summarize this entire paragraph of text in three sentences, what would those three sentences be?”
Rigorously edit out redundant words and phrases. Pare all the words on your slides to the minimum possible.
Provide a hook – Capture your audience’s attention.
Draw attention by beginning with a hook. Re-use that hook when you need to recapture your audience. Create a hook by presenting your audience with an issue that needs solving. This works well if the topics you mention create psychological distress. Provide a solution to the pain. The promise of having their distress resolved will hold your audience’s attention.
Be eloquent – Build a persuasive message.
Certain well-tested techniques can help you appear more impressive and persuasive to your audience. For example, use a core-message sentence– a well-crafted phrase that sums up your essential thought – at regular intervals to command audience attention.
“Identify a sentence summarizing your message perfectly. Deliver an example, then state the sentence. Another example. Repeat the sentence.”
Senator Bernie Sanders gave a speech that drew attention to the challenges that families face due to lack of maternal leave, family leave and sick leave. He gave examples of families who had suffered. To punctuate his examples, Sanders repeated the phrase, “That is an attack on everything that a family is supposed to stand for.” To use this approach, formulate a statement that captures the heart of the issue you are addressing. Then, list examples of the issue in question and insert your signature sentence between the examples.
Brighten your attitude – Develop a positive mind-set.
Almost everyone suffers from negative and debilitating thoughts which can sap their confidence and obstruct effective communication. However, if you go into the experience of public speaking with a positive outlook, you can upgrade your mental state and sidestep crippling nervousness.
“Remember this quote, apparently attributed to Winston Churchill (though some dispute this): When you’re 20, you care what everyone thinks, when you’re 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you’re 60, you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place.”
Use cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to defuse feelings of negativity. To use the CBT process, pay attention to your internal mental conversations – the things you say to and about yourself and your circumstances. Identify any negative thoughts. Determine the ways in which these thoughts lack truth or merit. Next, generate positive thoughts to supplant the negative ones. Enhancing your perspective enables you to swiftly, smoothly and automatically use the nine other approaches you have learned.
About the Author
Peter Andrei has trained numerous speakers and earned more than 25 awards as a competitive public speaker.
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