Verbal Fluency
When you’re a leader it helps if you’re fairly knowledgeable and can rattle off a bunch of different words like hyperbole, superfluous, chrysostomatic and… aubergine. Sure, you might sound as though you’ve swallowed a dictionary, and people might roll their eyes — but you know that you’ll be moving mountains with your fancy language.
Of course, we jest — the average person will be less impressed by your vast vocabulary, and more so with your ability to speak confidently and with conviction.
Think President Obama, and his ability to capture the attention of a room, a nation, and the world with his speeches. One of the best speakers of our time, Barack Obama manages to inspire with a little bit of fancy speaking, and a whole lot of confidence in his message.
Command Attention
As a leader, engagement is key — and the key to engagement is speaking in terms of other people’s interests. So as a general rule, people are most likely to listen to the things they’re interested in — surprise, surprise! Got a thing for knitting when nobody else does? You’re the coolest — but they won’t care how many stitches you can do in a minute, just sayin’.
As a leader the interest of your audience should be pretty high up there on your list of ‘things to take note of’, so tailoring your conversation, speech, actions to that interest shouldn’t be much of a stretch. What motivates your audience? What’s going to encourage them to take action?
Paint Pictures with Words
Imagery through words can take your audience to a particular place, time, situation and even feeling. Try to connect what you’re saying with real life examples, and ask your audience to imagine certain situations through the way you speak to them.
Just to make things confusing, that doesn’t mean using endless amounts of metaphors (though we do love a good one), and please please please avoid cliches. If we hear ‘without the rain there would be no rainbow’ or ‘the ball is in your court’ one more time…
Be Genuine
Your team is made up of different personalities, and each person will make their own conclusion about the things you tell them. Studies have shown that when we choose an outcome for ourselves, we are far more committed to that particular outcome than if someone just told us what to do and what to think.
Here are some tips for convincing speeches and conversations:
- Know what you’re talking about. Sounds obvious, but it’s super important y’know.
- Use confidence to gain trust and credibility. If you believe it, other people will believe it too.
- Go with the flow. Sticking to a set script can be jarring, boring, and leave you open to awkward pauses when you forget where you’re up to.
Verbal fluency is a skill that doesn’t come naturally to everyone, but there’s good news: you can learn and refine it, and become an effective leader with excellent communication skills.
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This article is published as part of Griffith University’s LEAD Series. Griffith University Leaders are encouraged to register for our LEAD events, as part of their professional development.
