Speaker 1: Public speaking can be like an express elevator for your career and your leadership influence. I've been saying for years that when people see you excel at public speaking, they'll say to themselves, that's a leader. And when I've explained this to my clients, people say, oh yeah, I never thought about it like that. It makes sense. The question is, why do we connect these two? Well, I'm going to explain five key ways public speaking demonstrates your leadership. And by the end, I hope this video motivates you to do as much public speaking as you can. This one video may completely redefine how you see your career development. Be sure to download my free PDF that'll give you seven instant tips to become a more confident speaker. There are links to that and other resources in the description below the video. The first reason is that public speaking physically positions you as the leader in the room. Public speaking makes you look and sound like a leader because very simply, you are the one up there talking and other people are listening carefully to you. You're the spokesperson. You are selected to speak on behalf of the organization or whatever interests you represent. That's leadership in action. When you're teaching, training others, explaining how things work in a presentation, this is a moment of visible leadership. Even if you're not the actual supervisor, other people will make that leadership association almost automatically. Let's pretend, for example, you're on vacation and you're staying at a big, fancy conference hotel. You decide to go to the hotel pool. You throw a towel over your shoulder and you walk down the hall. On your way to the pool, you pass a packed conference room and you notice one person up on the stage looking well-dressed, giving a presentation. You see about 200 people listening and taking notes. That's 200 listeners and one speaker. Which person in that room looks and sounds like a leader? The only individual you'd even notice would be the speaker. They're the only ones with leadership visibility. In movies and TV shows, when they want to quickly establish that somebody is a leader, they often show that character doing some public speaking. Public speaking literally positions you as the leader in the room. Second, public speaking displays a rare leadership competence. A leadership position puts you in front of people. Leaders are expected to stand up and speak all of the time. If you count group meetings, trainings, saying some opening words at an event, a question and answer session, this could be a daily activity where you stand up and speak. That's why it's a sought-after skill that leaders are expected to have. But most people actively avoid public speaking. So when you do it well, you're demonstrating to everybody that you already possess that leadership competence. And there are a lot of parts to that. You're showing people you know how to research, prepare, organize your thoughts, make good visual aids perhaps, choose the right words, and animate your message in a way that engages listeners. Not everybody has that skillset. And even if you don't have an official leadership position yet, public speaking allows you to show off those skills. There's an old joke, how many good public speakers are there in most marketing departments? And the answer is none, because all of the good public speakers have been promoted. Now it's not a funny joke, but there's some truth to that. I've seen people get promoted because of public speaking on multiple occasions. I used to work at a dot-com internet-type company a long time ago, and one day I attended a training session about how to use Microsoft Word more efficiently. The in-house presenter was awesome. Her presentation skills were smooth, confident, comfortable. I just assumed that she was a trainer, supervisor, or even director from some other department. As it turns out, she was one of the company's newest employees. She had no supervisory responsibilities yet. I got to know her and she told me that she always volunteers to do in-house trainings. She enjoys presenting, but she realized it also was a great way to get promoted. About six months later, she was already promoted to a supervisory role, and she skipped over lots of people who had been there longer than her. In a similar situation, I worked one-on-one with a client on a big presentation. She said to me, look, I'm stuck in my current role. I really wanna get this presentation right because it's an opportunity for me to gain some visibility. So we spent some extra time making sure she was really ready. About a week later, she told me that immediately after the presentation, a high-level leader approached her, encouraged her to apply for a management position opening in his department. He said directly, we have a leadership opening that I think you'd be a great fit for. Public speaking demonstrates a rare and sought-after leadership competence. The trick is to do it before you're even an official leader so you get noticed sooner. Third, public speaking demonstrates courage and initiative. These are also important leadership qualities. Most people have public speaking anxiety. They don't like the spotlight. They don't like taking that risk. But if you think about it, if you can't handle doing a presentation in front of people, will the high-level decision-makers really believe that you're ready to handle other pressures of leadership? In contrast, if you are volunteering to stand up and speak, that alone says something about your self-confidence, your initiative, your can-do spirit. People notice that type of courage. Public speaking shows that you're not held back by insecurities or fears. You can handle pressure. You can face challenges. It's like a leadership test in a way. If you can do public speaking, then other people will believe you have what it takes to tackle other aspects of leadership. Fourth, public speaking demonstrates and shares your expertise. This works equally well whether you're giving an in-house presentation or one to an outside audience. You're sharing your specific subject matter expertise and knowledge. If you're doing a presentation on website development, you're demonstrating that you have website expertise. If you're talking about how to fix a diesel engine, you're demonstrating that expertise. When you stand up and speak, you're establishing yourself as an authority on your subject. Now, here's a question. Do other people know what you know? Probably. Do some people maybe know even more? Sure. But if they don't share what they know in a presentation or in some other way, their knowledge only stays in their head. So by giving a presentation, you're sharing what you know for all to see. Now your knowledge doesn't just benefit you. Your expertise is benefiting everybody. You're making yourself more valuable by communicating what you know. The impact is almost immediate. I did an in-house presentation a while back at the college where I teach. I spoke to the entire leadership team of about 100 of the top full-time leaders working on campus. I shared my expertise. And in the weeks that followed that presentation, I was approached by numerous leaders across campus asking if I could meet with them to help them through an important issue. I shared my expertise in a presentation and it instantly gave me more influence and leadership on campus. And not long after that, I was asked if I'd be interested in a higher level leadership role. I know professionals in software, insurance, even plumbing. And the main reason they do presentations is to establish themselves as the expert. They know it almost automatically leads to more influence and generates more business. People want to listen to experts and sharing your expertise will establish you as a leader. Fifth, public speaking demonstrates your persuasiveness. When you stand up and speak, your voice is leading the discussion and bringing people along. As a leader, you will constantly need to persuade other people to pursue the vision that you're casting, work toward a goal and stay motivated. A persuasive speaker will often have to convince people and change minds or change their actions. These skills are one in the same as leadership. Think of all those halftime locker room movie scenes and in TV shows where the coach is talking to his discouraged players, but he convinces them to dig deep. He shows them that they can win this thing and they charge out of that locker room like a brand new team to face the second half of the game. Motivating people to take action is inseparable from leadership. Your persuasiveness also puts your point of view out there generally. I don't like the term thought leadership, I have to admit that, but that's sort of how this works. When you state your position, support your argument with persuasive evidence and get people thinking in a new way, you can change things in your organization or community. When you change people's minds, they're following your point of view. When you're doing a presentation, you are leading them through that process. And when you're a leader, bringing people along persuasively is a daily activity. A friend of mine used to have an office right outside of the CEO's office at his company. My friend overheard that CEO explain the company's vision about 100 times as the CEO met with potential clients or was looking to recruit other high level executives. The leader was constantly persuading and motivating people. And when you show people that you have this persuasive skill in a presentation, other people will recognize your persuasiveness as a key leadership quality because it's part of every leader's job description and daily life. Let's look at all five of these. Which of these ring true for you? If these five connections between public speaking and leadership don't motivate you to get serious about your public speaking, then I don't know what will. Public speaking can be like an express elevator for your career and your leadership development. As mentioned, feel free to download that free PDF with these seven instant tips to become a more confident speaker. So I've given you five reasons or connections between public speaking and leadership. What did I miss? What other aspects of public speaking demonstrate leadership to you? I look forward to reading your comments below. Until next time, thanks, God bless, and I'll see you soon.