10 Ways to Become a Better Business Leader

First time leader? You need this.

Being thrust into a leadership position is daunting. No person is entirely prepared for their first leadership role. All leaders get a start somewhere. All had to learn how to communicate to achieve success.

Below are ways you can become a better leader by practicing your speaking skills. With practice, you can become a confident leader who inspires and gets results.

1. Unify

Part of being a leader is connecting with your audience, but an additional task is connecting the audience members with each other.

Often in business you’ll be faced with a difficult situation that could split your team. Difficultly happens often in sports.

After a loss the members of the team look for blame. This natural reaction can split the players.

The coach of the team is challenged with unifying the team.

One way to do this is to find common ground. Something coaches do is to focus energy on the next opponent. That’s something every team member can get behind.

The coach says something like:

“Okay. Analyse your individual performance today. Tomorrow we focus on the next opponent. They have been winning and it will take focus and preparation to get the victory.”

The next time you give a presentation try finding common ground for all members in the audience to unite around. You’ll find this technique will make for better presentations. It’s also the sign of a great leader.

2. Share Success

Your success is not your own. Yes, your hard work was part of the reason you became a leader. When you speak to your team, though, you’ll need to share your success.

Just about every winners acceptance speech goes for ages. Why? The winner mentions those that helped them. The winner thanks people. The success is shared with many and that makes the person more endearing.

When you are in situations where you are speaking about your success always share that success with others. The success of each individual is part of the bigger success of the organisation.

The best leaders are those that inspire people. When you make people feel part of something they will want to be part of future success. They will do anything to be part of your team.

3. Find Opportunity

Life is about choices. We all have the choice to complain or to find opportunity in difficult situations.

For example, when a business model is destroyed by the competition there are two choices. The business can fold or find a new model that works even better than the original.

The best leaders turn difficult situations into opportunities. Not only do these leaders find opportunity, they will get the team excited about the new challenge.

Everybody has struggles. We often avoid talking about struggles because we’re afraid of how we’ll be perceived. The truth is that everybody in your audience has struggles. They will relate to yours.

In your next presentation, find a struggle you have had and explain how you turned it into an opportunity to succeed and grow as a person. From there you can talk about something affecting the organisation. Then call on the team to see it as an opportunity to improve and become better.

When you inspire your team you get results as a speaker and you also become a great leader.

4. Become a Storyteller

Much of what you read, hear and watch involves a story. We relate to stories. Even if something really doesn’t relate to our specific situation we find ways to make it fit our worldview.

In the Rocky films, Rocky was the underdog in the first movie. People related to the character even though they likely had never boxed. The general theme of the underdog is what allowed them to connect and feel inspired.

As a speaker you can tell specific stories. What you need to find are stories that have a general theme for your audience to relate to.

Great speakers tell stories about themselves and about others. Stories allow the speaker to communicate key points to the audience and convince them to listen.

Leadership works the same way. Find the general theme in stories and you’ll inspire your team to follow you in the pursuit if success.

5. Find the Correct Emotions

Stories do a great job of bringing out emotion. The story of Rocky was emotional. We saw the struggle he went through as he tried to make a better life for himself and his wife. Struggle is a real emotion that everyone goes through.

The best leaders find the correct emotions to use to connect with the audience. It’s a delicate area to tread because if you go to far people will see through it. You need to be reasonable, but relatable.

Be honest. Don’t manufacture emotion. Stick to the storytelling approach mentioned in the previous point. Tell your stories. Tell stories that have had an impact on you. If something touches you it will touch those in the audience and you’ll win them over.

Find the right emotions when speaking and your audience will connect and follow you. That devotion to your cause is exactly what you need as a leader in your organisation.

6. Find Confidence

Stories and emotion are great, but beyond an individual moment you need something more concrete. Logic is required to fully convince people to join you in the pursuit of success.

Great leaders in history have always had the confidence of research and logic. They work hard to figure out the best course of action.

The reason you were put in a leadership role in your company is because you have worked to become knowledgeable. You understand what is happening in your industry and your company.

The research efforts you put in give you the confidence to give meaningful speeches. Do all the research that is necessary to find logic in the points you’re making. When you have sound logic you’ll project confidence, which gives the audience confidence in you.

Earning that confidence is a major step in getting people to follow you and work hard for you.

7. Call To Action

Getting people to listen is one accomplishment, but to really make change happen you need action. A good speaker can get people to listen, but the best speakers know how to call the audience to action.

Think of a politician out on the campaign trail. The first goal is to get people to listen, but the ultimate goal is to get people to vote. Successful politicians use all the points above to earn interest and respect. They close with the call to vote.

As the leader in your business it’s important to close your presentations with calls to action. Focus on the overall vision for the project and then break it down into tasks the individuals in the audience need to accomplish to reach the overall goal.

By breaking the large goal into smaller goals you’ll make the task seem attainable to everyone in the audience and they’ll be willing to get on board with your plan.

8. Set Goals

Vision is what people expect from leaders.

Your position as the leader is to establish goals for the company. These will be based on the opportunity in the industry and the ability of your company.

Along with goals you’ll need reason. Your company will have reason for each goal. It could be a sales goal. It could be a goal to enter a new product market. Your team will understand these goals, but it might not connect with them fully.

Your team needs a reason to get behind a goal. For the most part people want to be part of something successful. They want to know that they have a secure place in the company. Circle back and find the emotion that connects with your team. That will be the reason they get behind your goal.

9. Silence

Silence is something people seem uncomfortable with. Think about times you’ve been with friends and family.

Most people need to fill in moments of silence with words to halt the awkwardness they feel.

Silence is a good thing for leaders. When communicating with your team you can use silence after key points to make everyone feel the importance.

For your next presentation, leave a moment of silence after the important points. Become comfortable with these moments. The audience will get a better understanding of what you’re saying and you’ll come across as a person in control of the situation.

10. Results

Speaking is like sport. Results matter.

A basketball player that goes to the court to shoot random shots for hours may become better, but a player that sets goals for making shots and does so in game situations will find more improvement.

Doing something for the sake of doing it is not constructive practice.

When you practice your speaking focus on the results your speaking needs to achieve. Instead of writing your presentation and reading it to yourself for hours, read it to someone. Analyse the way they react. Focus on getting the reaction you want.

Focus on the results.

Conclusion

These practice tips should improve your speaking skills. You’ll find more confidence because you’ll be practicing in a meaningful way that achieves results.

As you improve as a speaker you’ll also become a better leader.

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