Would you like to connect more effectively with more confidence and clarity when you speak to your clients,prospective clients, and your staff?
Your voice is closely linked to your state of well-being and confidence. How you project your voice and your energy impacts how you feel as well as how you help your clients to feel.
Have you ever stopped to consider how you feel about your own voice and how it impacts others? Have you ever considered spending some time and attention on developing your voice?
Some of the benefits of developing your clear, confident, and connected voice, or what I call your ‘voice of leadership’ include:
Building trust & rapport
Projecting Confidence
Being more effective as a manager, coach, and salesperson
Attracting more clients
Presenting yourself more successfully in any personal or professional situation.
There are four interrelated aspects of your voice to develop. I refer to these aspects in four categories: body, heart, mind, and spirit:
Body:
Physically, there are certain vocal and breathing techniques you can use to produce a confident and resonant voice.
Heart:
Emotionally, your voice reflects your inner feelings as well as your level of warmth and interest in another.
Mind:
Mentally, your voice contains the thoughts behind your message which are ideally well-framed, well-developed, logical, and clear.
Spirit:
Your voice reflects how connected you are to your sense of purpose, your mission, or
and to ‘the bigger picture’ in your life.
As a leader, I imagine you work on creating a clear message as well as connecting to others to build rapport emotionally. It’s less common for leaders to focus on their actual physical voice. Here are some techniques you can use to physically develop a confident, clear and connected voice:
1. The Three R’s of Projecting Your Voice:
Release: When the body is relaxed and released, the voice follows - spend some time freeing your body by sighing, swinging, and shaking loose tension which may stop you from voicing yourself fully.
Respiration: When you breathe fully into your lower diaphragm, you begin to lower your stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol. As you calm and centre yourself through
breathing deeply, your voice also becomes fuller and more authoritative.
Resonance: There are two kinds of resonance you can access. The resonance in your chest area is used for more one on one conversations, whereas the resonance in your ‘mask’ or nose/ cheekbones area is more for presentations and projecting to a larger audience. To access these types of resonance, practice speaking as if the sound is literally coming through your sternum (for the one on one conversation) OR through your cheekbones (when projecting to a larger audience).
2. Articulation - speaking clearly
Practice tongue twisters - as if speaking to a deaf audience who needs to read your lips -
this will give you more clarity and authority in your speech. There are numerous tongue twister sites on google - here is one...http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/en.htm
3. Vocal Dynamics
When you speak, avoid falling into a monotone by practising the five vocal dynamics - either through reading children’s stories, reciting poetry, or practising your presentation. Dynamics give liveliness to your speaking and keep your client’s attention and interest. Examples of dynamics include altering volume, pace, pitch (high-low), and the length of words (short-long) and adding pauses.
Remember, your voice is a powerful instrument.
The poet Rumi knew the power of his voice and often referred to his voice as a drum:
‘My voice is beating on the drum in your ear...don’t think that’s a casual thing.’
If you’d like information on presentation coaching or courses,
please see www.sallymabelle.com - there is also a short video sample of me in action telling some of my story. My last public course in 2011 is Friday, 2nd December. See www.sallymabelle.com/events for details.
Sally Mabelle, ‘Inspirational Speaker of the Year’ 2011 NSANZ and President of the National Speakers’ Association is available for keynote talks, conference workshops, and inhouse course on transforming conflict into creativity at work and giving dynamic and engaging presentations. You can reach her at sally@sallymabelle.com
Sally Mabelle c. 2011 - if you want to publish or print this article, please contact Sally for permission and include the following acknowledgement and link to my website:
by Sally Mabelle, The Voice of Leadership Specialist:inspiring clear, confident, and connected communication. www.sallymabelle.com
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