COMMUNICATION SKILL...It isn’t Hard to be a Charismatic Speaker

It isn’t Hard to be a Charismatic Speaker

Oratory is a skill, and like all skills, it takes time and practice to perfect. And with more virtual teams and impatient audiences, oratory is becoming a critical skill

Oratory is a critical skill for leadership. It helps the leader persuade and motivate the followers and makes us believe the leader is capable. For a long time, it was thought to be an art people were born with. But this has been proved wrong in recent times. Oratory is a skill, and like all skills, it takes time and practice to perfect. With more virtual teams and impatient audiences, this skill is becoming more critical than ever. Timothy Clark and D Greatbach of Durham Business School have explored the reason listeners ascribe charisma to speakers. They chose 7 ‘influential thought leaders’ — Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Daniel Goleman, Gary Hamel, Rosbeth Moss Kanter, Tom Peters and Peter Senge. Different audiences watched their video tapes and then rated the extent of the speaker’s charisma. This is what the duo found:
    Content did not matter as much as strong delivery for speakers to be seen as charismatic. Successful delivery techniques include: Varying pitch of voice, using the right word quickly, maintaining eye contact with audience, gesturing freely, looking and feeling relaxed and using facial expressions.
    “Delivery is three times as important as the content”. This doesn’t mean content is not important. It has to be simple, well-articulated, appeal to the emotions, values, identities and hopes of the followers. The vision must be a mental image the leader evokes to portray an idealised future of the organisation.
Clark and Greatbach also quote from a previous study that identifies rhetoric formats.
Contrasts:Juxtapose two sentences opposed in words, sense or both, but emphasise the message by saying it twice — once positively and the other negatively. E.g.- “You decide — do you want to be a master of change or a victim of circumstance?”
Lists: Give a list of the top three reasons for an issue. Puzzle-Solution: Give the audience a puzzle and then the solution so the audience interest is aroused. The core message of the talk is in the solution.
Headline-Punch Line: Like ‘Puzzle-Solution’, but the speaker says it in the form of a pledge/oath, for e.g.- “Shall we, from now on, always appreciate others in public as soon as they have done a good job?”
A mix of any of the above, e.g. contrasts in a list.
Position-taking: First describe the situation and then directly/ indirectly say whether it was positive or negative
Pursuits: Re-emphasise a previous point, summarising it again Even the most successful charismatic speakers didn’t have uniform ratings, using high stress (Tom Peters) or careful intonation of voice (Rosbeth Moss Kanter) affected various people differently. So, it is not possible to have a single style of charisma that is universally applicable. To be successful charismatic speakers, leaders must vary their levels of stress, emphasis and energy to cater to different people in the audience. The study does not, however, say something important: Before you begin to communicate, be clear on what you expect from others, and be honest about the communication — especially the intent.
Views expressed here are not necessarily those of Infosys.
References: Timothy, C., & Greatbatch. D, . (2011, February) Audience perceptions of charismatic and non-charismatic oratory: The case of management gurus, The Leadership Quarterly, 22( 1), 22-32  ET120714