Stuck at home? Practice your speaking skills!
For those of you who are stuck at home, how about taking this opportunity to practice your public speaking skills?
What? Public speaking? Who needs public speaking skills NOW? Not only that, will public speaking skills ever be useful again????
OK. You might not need them right now while you are confined at home…however, if you have to do any virtual communication for your work (e.g. to present ideas, to motivate, to get buy in…) you are speaking and you have a public.
And as for the question “will these skills ever be useful again?” well, don’t kid yourself, unless the world comes to an end, the answer is a big YES! In fact, these skills will be more useful than ever in the aftermath of this pandemic where people will more than ever need to be inspired.
So, today, let’s take a look at one of the most crucial elements of speaking: the ability to establish instant credibility. Without it, forget it!
The posture that expresses power and credibility
The good news is that they aren’t a hundred different postures to establish credibility. There is one, and it is simplicity itself. It is a posture that physically reflects balance, stability and openness. Interestingly, it is the “dominant male” posture we share with our cousins the hominidae primates, such as gorillas. By adopting this posture, the dominant male communicates his strength and reassures the members of the group on his capacity to lead and protect them. He stands upright, legs slightly apart, and exhibits ostentatiously his most precious possessions: his genitalia. This “crotch display” is his way of saying “I am so powerful and self assured that I don’t even need to protect the most precious and vulnerable part of my anatomy: I fear nothing and no-one!”. In humans, we can see this posture at work in pictures of cow-boys or heros. Although we have evolved into a highly sophisticated species (I sometimes wonder...) this is and remains the posture that conveys power and assurance, even though most of us are totally unaware of it. Luckily, women too can adopt this "dominant" posture, and produce the same credibility effect on their audience. So, all you need to do, as the cow-boy or the hero figure, is to stand upright, straight and symmetrical, feet apart (about shoulder width) and well anchored in the ground, your shoulders back and your head straight. It is simple, easy, comfortable – and it is magical. Your audience will feel better looking at you, because they reflect back to you what you project. Always keep in mind that your posture can put an audience of 500 people at ease – or ill at ease - just like that!
Conversely, everything that is asymmetrical (head bent forward or to one side, tilted hips) tends to give the impression that you lack self-confidence or that you are seeking approval. At best, people might find you “nice”, or “pleasant”, but certainly not credible nor reassuring in the role of a leader.
A woman must be twice as vigilant
If you are a woman, everything related to posture is CRUCIAL (it is also crucial for men of course, but for women it is even more vital): let’s not forget that even though women are “liberated” and despite all the good intentions towards them, the old patterns still linger, and equality remains an illusion. A woman standing in front of a mainly male audience must all the more establish her credibility. It’s like that. If her posture is asymmetrical, (which tends to happen naturally in many women) and if by chance she is smiling a lot, she will soon be labeled as “nice’ or “sweet”, not forgetting either that all her physical traits will already have been inspected in detail. So, in order to help our male friends transcend these old automatic reactions, at least in the professional arena, I invite women to be particularly vigilant about their posture and the image they want to convey: it is NOT about trying to act like a man (as this is exactly what it would look like, which wouldn’t really be much better!), but about establishing credibility and being taken seriously, which is still quite a challenge nowadays.
Just do it!
Easy: it will only take you a couple of seconds to adopt the credibility posture. Notice the effect in the mirror, and notice also how it makes you feel. And, very important, remember to use it whenever, and for whatever reason, you are feeling anxious, uncertain or embarrassed as, if you are not vigilant, these feelings will express themselves in your posture and instantly kill your credibility.
The credibility posture can change lives - it changed mine!
So, let’s take a look at one of the most crucial elements of speaking: the ability to establish instant credibility. Without it, forget it!
International relations / Partnerships / Project Management
4yBravo Chilina! Following your advice for many years now :)