Tag Archives: public speaking

Are You Speaking Like a Leader? New Book Celebrates Civility

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SPEAKING Like a Leader, With Civility & Featuring 52 More Leadership Mints by Peter Jeff, is now available on Amazon.com, $15 paperback, $8 digital.

The title page of the 298-page book states emphatically: “This book is R Rated: R for Respect. How leaders gain, retain, and sustain respect from distracted audiences in general and disengaged employees in particular. And in the process how speaker/leaders earn greater credibility for themselves and increased buy-in for their message. With civility.”

In addition to a speech writing template and 12 ways to spice up the memorability of your podium performance, the book is filled with examples on earning credibility rooted in civility from audiences who are aggrieved and adversarial.

To purchase on Amazon.com SPEAKING Like a Leader.

There are specific bonus chapters on reprimanding an employee, on cooling off an irate customer, on contending with an aggressive news media, on overcoming apathetic meeting participants and on dueling effectively with a skeptical job interviewer.

SPEAKING Like a Leader is also the only public speaking book on the market that features a 18-page section on how to SEASON your sense of humor to foster greater civility for your presentation style and greater credibility for gaining understanding and acceptance of your message.

As the third book in The Leadership Mints Series, SPEAKING Like a Leader builds on leading with empathy in LOVING Like a Leader published in 2017 and on clarity in decision-making in THINKING Like a Leader, published in 2016.

Like the other books in The Leadership Mints Series, SPEAKING Like a Leader offers a grab ‘n go, dip-in-anywhere 5-minute reading experience that refreshes a leader’s feeling for leading with Leadership Mints — short stories that personify optimum leadership behavior. And like the candy mint, these Leadership Mints are easily spooned, quickly digested and immediately invigorating.

Leading with your After Dinner Mints

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help more fully engage your listeners. Reading time: 3:51

“And that’s the way it is…” Walter Cronkite, closed every CBS television news nightly broadcast with that phrase.

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Walter Cronkite

Those 6 words signaled to all his viewers not simply the conclusion of his broadcast but the authenticity of what they had just experienced.

That phrase —“And that’s the way it is”- repeated every weekday night gave a ring of familiarity that threw a proverbial security blanket around his viewers.

His mantra -decisive on principle and incisive on purpose — made his audience feel special, that they had been part of something tailored specifically for them.

No wonder the most effective leaders know how to define and deliver closing phrases like that give greater meaning to their presentations. Continue reading →

Warm Your Audience With A Fireside Chat

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you more personally connect with your followers. Reading time: 3:22.

Your love affair with a camera lens is evident. You can handle a Teleprompter with the best of them. And now your role as Speaker in Chief seems even more comfortable, even more confident, even more commanding.

Well hold on there, Corporate Breath: Yes you Podium King. And you too Public Speaking Queen. Beware!

a fireplace-

The most effective public speakers know they need to do much more than light the proverbial fire under their audiences.

The most effective public speakers need to FIRST light up their audiences with a fire of ideas that draws the audience closer and closer to the speaker. They need to FIRST cast a verbal security blanket that first warms and comforts their audience to better process the cold truth.

That’s why the most effective public speakers need to FIRST feed that fire logs soaked in caring and concern, feeling and humanity, empathy and personality. Indeed, the most convincing leaders on the podium need to FIRST fan the flames of that fire to dry away the tears and burn away fears of their audience. Continue reading →

Parlaying Your Podium Power

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to leverage your public speaking skills. Reading time: 2:38.

You’ve got your business degree in hand and your job is going well. Now it’s time to focus on getting that promotion.

Your climb to the top begins the first time you step UP onto a podium and exercise your power to persuade others to follow you.

In stepping UP onto the podium you get your chance to convince upper management of your discipline and integrity to represent the company — in general.

In stepping UP onto the podium, you reinforce your staff’s commitment and conviction to work more collaboratively and productively — in particular.

No wonder that alumni from the business school at the University of Michigan credited their communications skills more than their business or financial acumen in earning their first promotion.

To help you focus on developing your powers of public speaking, let’s scan the history books for what other leaders say about the potency of Podium Power: For example, with your public speaking skills sharpened you can become more durable than a king. Continue reading →

Rollercoaster Riding From The Podium

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help your audience better retain the message of your next speech. Reading time: 3:12.

Think of yourself climbing into the driver’s seat the next time you step on a podium or up to a lectern. Now take your audience for a joy ride. Let them feel in the pit of their stomachs just how exhilarated you feel about your subject. Now step on it!

Accelerate to exhilarate. Speed up and then slow down. Accelerate then slow down. Remember your first joy ride? The fun is in the acceleration not just the velocity. So too in effective public speaking. Speed up and slow down. Vary your pitch. Vary your tone. Vary your rate of speech.

Yet too often I hear overly excited leaders with their foot slammed down on the accelerator screaming with the passion of a preacher seemingly for miles. Too much. Then I hear other even more zealous leaders shifting into an even higher gear and rattling off facts like a professional auctioneer. Too fast. But mostly I hear leaders riding the brake, unsure of where they’re going and doling out fact after fact, drip by drip, in a tepid monotone. Too slow.

Pace yourself. Pacing is the key to an effective speech delivery-assuming the content is tailored to the audience’s interests, concerns and needs.

To help me remember the importance of pacing whenever I deliver a speech, I think of taking my audience on a roller coaster ride. I always like the suspenseful build up point by point by point, just like the roller coaster clicks along the tracks as it climbs that first incline, every so slowly and then halts briefly at the top before soaring down the incline. Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

Continue reading →