10/3/2017 9 Positive Character Traits You Need to Show When You Speak

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9 Positive Character Traits You Need to Show When
You Speak
Oct 01, 2017 by Gary Genard

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Do audiences love hearing you speak? Here are 9 powerful qualities you should display to show a
positive outlook and personality.

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In her book Presence, Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy mentions nine universal
emotions: anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise, contempt, shame, and pride.[1]

I sincerely hope you havent experienced all of them lately while giving a presentation.

The mention of universal emotions, however, got me thinking about emotional and other interior
states that express themselves outwardly when we speak. (See, especially, Paul Ekmans research
on culturally non-specific facial expressions.) Do we show through our face and body language
how we feel when speaking to others? Of course. And do audiences make decisions about us and
our ideas through the filter of who they think we are?

You know they doand thats what I want to talk about today.

Speaking of body language, do you use it effectively as a speaker? It's a key part of the
package you display to audiences, and it strongly effects their perceptions of you and your
material. Add essential nonverbal techniques to your arsenal of best speaking practices.
Download myfree cheat sheet,"6 Skills Building Exercises for Effective Body Language."

So universal emotions or not, Id like to discuss nine positive character traits you should be
showing audiences. They will not only help get listeners on your side (as will positive thinking
generally). They are in fact essential traits for displaying a constructive outlook and personality.

9 Positive Qualities Effective Speakers Display

#1. Confidence
Cuddy is famous for one of the most popular TED Talks, "Your Body Language May Shape Who
You Are." That's where she mentions her team's research on power poses. Cuddy claims that
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standing like Wonder Woman will elevate confidence-building testosterone and decrease harmful
cortisol. Though this research is now in dispute, one fact remains clear: confidence pays a huge
dividend in trust, credibility, and believability. Use a grounded stance, occupy the whole stage,
and speak at a pace that's comfortable for both you and listeners.

#2. Joy
If there's an activity more suited to creating trepidation and avoidance behavior than public
speaking, I'd like to hear about it. In fact, there isn't. Surveys over decades have shown that
speaking to groups is the most prevalent form of social anxiety. To show joy in speaking instead is
to light up your topic and audience at the same time. Positive visualization can help you reach
such an outcome. After all, don't you relish the idea of sharing ideas with people you know are as
interesed in them as you are?

#3. Fearlessness
Sureyou think a lot is riding on this speech. (Here, incidentally, is a helpful fact: this
speech,anyspeech, matters less than you think it does. Does your essential value change if you
bomb now and then?) Audiences expect nervousness and at least a dollop of fear to show up
because public speaking gives them jitters too. Display fearlessness,even if you don't entirely feel
it, and they will relax. So, of course, will you.

#4. Love
Your winning equation is Love x 2: embracing the opportunity to touch others' lives, and loving the
people you're speaking to. Joy is the outward expression of your commitment to benefitting
others, while love is the reservoir it comes from. These people have carved out time in their busy
lives to be influenced by what you have to say. What's not to love about that!

#5. Curiosity
Ever wonder why actors can give the 1,000th performance of a Broadway play and make it seem
as if it's all happening for the first time? Some of it is an actor's techniques. But there's a core of
curiosity involved too: what will my fellow actors give metonight? What will happen in this night's
traffic on the stage? All of this is you too: you're just as dedicated to the subject you're passionate
about. What will you, along with the audience, learn about it today?

#6. Empathy
Most presenters are speaker-centric, meaning that they conceive, experience, and evaluate a
speech from the strictly personal. Do the opposite, at all three points, and you open yourself up to
what the audience sees and hears. That's where your head (and heart) should have been anyway.
I call it living in the audience's world. Prepare your content, and even deliver it, asking yourself,
"How will this come across to these people?" If you conduct an audience analysis beforehand,
you'll be that much more directed concerning what they want and need.

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#7. Openness
Four-time Academy Award nominee Rosalind Russell once said, "Acting is standing up naked and
turning around very slowly." Public speaking is that, too. Once of the spectacular aspects of giving
speeches and presentations is that your audience sees who you are, right through the screen of
content you think is protecting you. And don't you want to be open with them? When you model
openness with an audience, you're saying, "I have nothing to hide from you." That's when the
doors to influence open from their side of the footlights.

#8. Vulnerability
I've saved for last the two qualities you might otherwise scratch your head over. Some power-
focused people hear this lesson with disbelief. "Show I'm vulnerable? I'll be torn apart!" But
audiences aren't interested in being your stepping stones to glory. In fact, they want to like you
and trust you (when was the last time you attended a presentation hoping that the speaker would
be on an ego trip?). Believe me, part of that is seeing you're human, i.e., vulnerable, just like they
are. They will trust you all the more.

#9. Forgiveness
Here's another naked truth you already know: Though you mustn't act like a jerk, sometimes
audience members will. Remember two things: (1) Opposition means that the person is still
listening to you, is still engaged. That's a world apart from the person who has mentally packed his
bags and gone home where your argument is concerned. And (2) Apart from being good for the
soul, forgiveness keeps you wedded to your audience in terms of trust, likability, believability, and
those other attributes I discussed above. When a listener sees you take the high road, she goes
there with you, but she won't join you in a mud bath.

And what about a sense of humor? Should you use humor in a speech?Clients sometime lament
to me that they can't get an audience laughing. But I tell them I'll take passion for a topic anyday
over the ability to yuk up the place. I think your listeners feel that way too.

[1] Amy Cuddy, Presence (Little, Brown and Company, 2015), 36.

You should follow me on Twitterhere.

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Tags: positive thinking,body language,TED talks,positive visualization,The Genard Method,Dr.

Gary Genard,likability,Amy Cuddy,positive outlook,power poses,positive character traits

Kate Roa 10/2/2017, 5:43:24 PM

#4, Gary,

When I'm sharing what I know with people that share the same hobby, I'm at my best. I think that
has something to do with feeling relaxed with the people in the room. There's an expectation that
what is about to be shared will help the person create something meaningful to them. When I
know the audiences' needs ahead of time, either in recreational or professional settings,
presentations go smoothly.

Reply to Kate Roa

Gary Genard 10/3/2017, 4:32:49 AM

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Kate,

It's no accident that when you know your audience's needs ahead of time your presentations go
smoothly. The needs of our audience should inform our purpose in speaking to them. Once we
know that, we can bring in exactly the content that will help us achieve that purpose. What a
wonderful phrase you've come up with: "creating something meaningful to them." Yes, that sounds
like #4 to me!

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