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How to Master Professional Speaking

By John Baldoni

April 17, 2007 — CIO — "Letting people see how I think" is how Senator Barack Obama describes his speaking style on the stump. As he travels the country seeking to introduce himself to voters as well as build support for his presidential campaign, Obama is taking a rhetorical approach that differs from candidates in both parties.

Most presidential candidates use their stump speeches to state their views and exhort the faithful. If they are good, they use their speeches as points of inspiration. Obama's tactic is more grounded and very purposeful. As he told Adam Nagourney of The New York Times, "I use a different style if I'm speaking to a big crowd; I can gin up folks pretty well." This is the style that he used in 2004 during the Democratic Convention when he introduced himself to the national public as a young politician running for senator. The faithful were enthralled. At the same time, Obama realizes that "when I am in these town hall settings, my job is not to throw them a lot of red meat." That is, he's not stumping overtly for votes; he's giving people a "sense of my thought process." In doing so, Obama is carving a good niche for himself as a thinking man's populist, a fresh face but one with a brain as big as his smile.

Vary Your Speaking Style
Those of us not running for office can learn from Obama's style, and in fact from what politicians from either party do. And that is varying your style to your audience. Skilled leaders know to vary their messages to audiences. For example, if you are speaking to an in-house group, you can be more revealing about what's going on inside the company than if you are speaking to a group of reporters. Public relations pros school their executives in developing different messages for different groups. But often not enough time is spent on varying speaking style, that is informal versus formal, or declamatory versus reflective. Varying that style is critical. So often audiences do not remember specific words or phrases but they do remember what the speaker looked like and whether he seemed sincere.

Public figures can serve as role models when selecting a speaking style. The mere mention of their names conjures up instant images of who they are and what they sound like. Here are some folks to consider emulating for messages you must deliver.

Think Ronald Reagan when you want inspire. Few could rouse audiences as well as President Reagan. Consider his speech in the wake of the Challenger disaster when he praised the bravery of the astronauts but also made it very clear that space travel would continue because it was important to our national identity. A more stern Reagan lectured the Soviet Union in Berlin by challenging the Soviet premier: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." He was reflecting the hopes and dreams of free people everywhere.

 

 

 

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