By Olga Smith
Speech is a very technical subject full of subtle details. I have spent 30 years learning these subtleties and in this blog post, I would like to outline some top tips for people who want to speak like leaders with authority. I will divide the speech into three main categories:
What do you say? What do you say refers to the content of your speech, word and phrases they use.
How do you say it? How you say it refers to their pronunciation and intonation, power, pitch, pace and use of pauses.
Body language. Body language refers to eye contact, posture, gestures and a way of carrying oneself.
Leaders speech content have the following characteristics:
1. Leaders use specific words that allow explaining something in a concise way, for example:
”The speech was not only entertaining but also well researched and clearly structured”.
2. Leaders are careful with words generalisation and superlatives because these words often wash out the true meaning. For example: “The speech was awesome (good, amazing, etc)”
3. Leaders use positive language. In order to sound positive avoid using the preposition “but”, instead of “but”, use the preposition “and”. “Because “but” negates the positive which happened before. Compare these two examples:
“The team has done well, but there are still more challenges to face.”
“The team has done well and is ready to face new challenges.”
4. Instead of talking about problems leaders talk about opportunities. For example, instead of saying: “ Our problem is that our business is very young and the competition is very powerful.” A leader would put it in terms of an opportunity: “We have an opportunity to learn best practices from our competition and offer the best to our customers”.
5. Leaders use assertive words that demonstrate belief and confidence. They do not use words that show hesitation and indecisiveness: seems, maybe, might, perhaps, would, etc. Compare these examples:
“I need this report by Monday. It is a final deadline”.
”It would be good to get this report early next week.”
Now would we come to the subject of how to say it as a leader.
6. The first thing to think about is the pitch if your voice. If you would like to demonstrate power and authority, then speak with lowered pitched voice. High pitched voice is typical for children, women and elderly people.
7. The second most important thing is the pace of your speech. Avoid rushed speech.
8. Use pauses between sentences, paragraphs and dramatic pauses. Do not be afraid of a pause, do not try to fill the pause with meaningless words. Allow yourself to breathe and focus instead
9. Think about your voice projection and articulation. Make sure your speech is clear and crisp and others hear you well. Leaders do not whisper so that people can’t understand what you say. Leaders do not shout, as shouting is perceived as a sign of desperation and weakness.
10. To look, feel and sound like a leader make sure you have good posture, maintain eye contact and have open gestures when speaking to show your confidence. Avoid slouching, looking down and closed gestures which are associated with people who are unsure of themselves and scared.
I recommend that you practise the language of leadership with our apps Elocution Lessons, Get rid of your Accent UK1 and Power, pitch, pace, pause.
More on www.batcsglobal.com
Read related blogs:
https://www.batcsglobal.com/accent-reduction-blog/2019/8/17/elocution-lessons-benefits
http://www.batcsglobal.com/accent-reduction-blog/2020/1/9/elocution-lessons-with-boris-johnson