This public speaking video explains how to overcome the fear of giving speeches and presentations and build self-confidence.
Public Speaking Tip #2: How to Stop Saying Um, You Know, Etc.
This public speaking video explains how to stop using words like “um,” “like,” and “you know” when giving a speech. Practical advice that will improve your public speaking and self-confidence.
Public Speaking Tip #4: My Most Embarrassing Public Speaking Gaffe—How to Recover from Mistakes
My most embarrassing public speaking boner. Wow! How to recover graciously when you make mistakes, offend, lose your place, etc, while giving a speech. The public speaking skills and tips you’ll need.
Public Speaking Tip #3: Serve Your Audience as a “Servant Speaker”
This public speaking video focuses on serving the audience and building trust in a society peppered with inauthentic, self-promoting speakers. Speak like a true servant leader in all speeches and presentations.
We can all become effective public speakers. Learn how with my video series on public speaking tips and skills for all types of speeches and speakers.
To Communicate as a Servant Leader, Give Up Some Control
I receive humbling notes from former mentees thanking me for something I said to them. Sometimes I don’t recall saying exactly such things. They sound like something I might have said, but not precisely what I think I would have shared.
When we listen we often emphasize particular points in our own minds. We tend to note and elaborate on those thoughts that seem to best address our own situations. In this sense, human communication is somewhat idiosyncratic. Thirty people who attend the same meeting will pick up on points that are most important to each of them.
While this can lead to misunderstanding, it can also enhance our communication. Others can use our words to expand and improve upon what we have to say.
Note: This essay is excerpted from my book Communicate Like a True Leader: 30 Days of Life-Changing Wisdom, available from Amazon.
Recognizing this dynamic, I assume that others might be ready to receive more than what I strictly intend to say. In fact, what I have to say might stimulate in listeners significantly more understanding than what I think I have to offer.
In short, human communication is dialogue, not merely monologue. Even if the listener doesn’t say anything, I can assume that he is probably in dialogue with himself—thinking, reflecting, questioning and the like. He might even be getting more out of his own inner dialogue than I thought I was capable of sharing.
Robert Greenleaf, the founder of Servant Leadership, refers to the role of “spirit” in relationships. I believe that when we aim humbly to serve others through communication, we discover an expansive, creative reality that can enhance our communication. In this sense, to lead from within us is also to be led from outside of or beyond us. Where this communication-enhancing creativity comes from is a mystery. So “spirit” seems to be an appropriate term.
With such creativity comes a great irony: sometimes the more stringently we try to control our communication, the less communication we will experience. This is counterintuitive. We need to reserve space for the unexpected—both in our speaking and our listening.
Of course such unpredictable communication isn’t an excuse for sloppiness. As I suggested earlier, we are called to use the gift of communication to serve others excellently as well as compassionately. Yet if we work too hard at it we might miss out on the unexpected benefits, even beyond our apparent abilities. We have to give up some control to be open to greater creative possibilities. Controlling people are not the most effective—let alone the most joyful—communicators. They tend to squelch the creative spirit.
Reflection
Can you recall a time when communication transcended your expectations—when people received more from your intended message than what you imagined was possible? If not, are you truly open to communication beyond your own means of control?
—Dr. Q
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Servant Leadership Communication is Shared Understanding—Not Transmission, Influence, or Agreement
As a new professor in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I was sitting in my campus office when the administrative assistant asked if I could take a call from a radio station in Zeeland.
Seconds later a program producer with an interesting accent invited me to a radio interview the following day. I accepted.
The next day the host came on the line to introduce me to his audience. I couldn’t fully understand him. His accent plus the static reduced intelligibility. He frustratingly asked me, “Do you know anything about . . . Zealand?”
“Of course,” I responded, “it’s just down the road. I’ve spoken in Zeeland a couple of times.” “Huh?” he wondered aloud. “Aren’t you in Michigan, in the USA?” “Right,” I confirmed. “Grand Rapids. About 20 miles from Zeeland.”
I had assumed that the program was broadcast on a nearby station in Zeeland, Michigan, when in fact it was a national broadcast on Radio New Zealand. What I interpreted as a Dutch accent from my own geographic area was a Kiwi dialect.
Note: This essay is excerpted from my book Communicate Like a True Leader: 30 Days of Life-Changing Wisdom, available from Amazon.
Miscommunication knows few bounds. The basic problem is that we assume that there will be shared understanding even when we bring different assumptions and life experiences to our interactions.
The most essential part of any definition of communication is shared understanding. Human communication is first of all the art of establishing shared understanding. To understand someone is to “stand under” that unique person, to humble one’s self to his or her understanding of reality.
Communication is not merely the “effect” that we have on each other. How you interpret me—how you are “affected” by my words—is not necessarily communication. If you don’t understand what I am actually intending to say, we failed to communicate. Such lack of shared understanding is miscommunication, not communication.
This is critically important because we humans are not called merely to affect one another. We are creatures of meaning, trust, and, at our best, shared understanding. Which is to say we are designed for community.
We don’t have to agree with one another in order to understand one another. Mature persons can agree to disagree even when they deeply understand each other.
Shared understanding can begin when we honestly accept one another’s invitations to engagement. We are on the way when we accept such invitations gratefully, listen openly, and converse respectfully. We thereby foster shared understanding—understanding of each other’s intended meanings.
When I began the radio interview I didn’t know who my audience really was. New Zealand was beyond my frame of reference. As I wrapped up the interview, I was sweating profusely. I had no idea how well the audience understood me. I could barely remember the conversation. I had been swimming anxiously in a sea of miscommunication. Ironically, the interview was about communication.
Reflection
Do you see communication as shared understanding or mere impact? Do you routinely aim for shared understanding in your everyday interactions?
—Dr. Q
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