Page 169 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

160 DELIVERY
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To understand body language, first be aware that no set of guidelines

is necessarily right for you. The only real answer to how you should
behave is within yourself—and you will find it if you look for it. When

leaders speak, they look animated and relaxed. They seem to respond
naturally to whatever they are saying. So can you.
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So the first rule of body language is that there are no rules (short

of not acting silly or unnatural, or creating glaring distractions).
The second rule of body language is try to answer your own heart
when you speak. If you are speaking from a prepared text, for exam-
ple, try to say the words on the page as if they really were your own
and were coming right out of your head (more on prepared text in
the next chapter). That’s exactly what every good deliverer of pre-
pared text needs—a confident conversational style with a thinking

person’s text and reactions that come from the heart. Even if you can
summon no emotion at all, still try to hear the words in your head
before you actually say them. That way, you are far less likely to
sound like you are reading.
If you are speaking extemporaneously or from simple notes, it is
a lot easier to practice a natural approach, because you don’t have to
read the speech. Now you can express every idea any number of dif-
ferent ways, with one way not necessarily any better than another.
You can be free to warm to your subject and really be yourself.
Even if your options are limited and you find yourself stuck at a

podium, you can always count on this short list of easy tips that will
make any delivery better:

◆ Don’t sway. Keep your feet fairly close together. Swaying only
makes you look distracted, uncomfortable, in a hurry to fi nish,
and altogether unprofessional. With your feet together, if you
reflexively start to sway, you will start to tip over.