Wise Leaders Are Great Presenters

This video and blog post is the fifth in a series about the roles Wise Leaders play.

Here's the video and post on Conversationalists.

Here's the video and post on Storytellers.

Here's the video and post on coaching and mentoring.

Here's the video and post on truth-telling. 

Presenting (public and professional speaking) in its simplest form is having presenting something relevant and valuable for the audience in ways that inspire people to take action in their own best way.

As a professional speaker I gave more than 3000 presentations over 30 years. I've followed a simple formula I learned at the being - have a clear message, share a story, make a point, link the point the message, repeat.

I got better and better at doing this. Along the journey I had many mentors and came across some great methodologies. Three have stood out:

1) My first speaking coach David Griggs taught me that it was never about me, always about the audience.

David also taught me not speak while moving and to return to the same place on stage or in a room to make the point and link to the message. I became great at pausing and allowing the audience time to hear themselves. My trademark opening was inspired by David and remains the same 30 years on "What I have to share with you today is important yet nowhere near as important as what you hear yourself say to yourself, who you become and what you do next."

2) Graham Davies wrote a book called The Presentation Coach. I swear by Graham’s book.

Graham recommends Micro-Statements for live, spoken presentations. I swear by them and create one for every conversation I have.

“A Micro-Statement is a sequence of words that quickly and compellingly captures the essence of your presentation in a way that is specifically shaped for the needs of a specific audience at a particular time.”

Graham Davies

More from Graham hear.

3) Matt Church and Peter Cook in their book Think introduced me to the idea of Pink Sheets as a way to create meaningful and impactful presentations. I still use this method today.

Become the wise leader you want to be,
Ian