Because Leadership Eventually Comes with a Microphone

How to Have a More Effective Presentation

by Jeff Henderson

For many years now, I’ve asked people this simple question:

How many of you have ever endured a boring presentation?

Every single time, the same response happens. People laugh. They look at the person next to them. Roll their eyes. And raise their hand.

Every time someone gives an un-engaging, boring presentation, it represents a lost opportunity.

There was a leader or communicator who had the opportunity to communicate something. And we never know what could have been.

We’ll never know if what they had to say could have changed your mind about something. Changed a business. Reached more people. Changed a community. Or maybe even made our world a better place.

We’ll never know what could have been. It’s a lost opportunity.

Now the reason we know this is that while we have experienced boring presentations, we’ve also experienced inspiring ones—helpful presentations that have helped improve businesses, organizations, communities, and people.

Every time someone speaks, there’s a lot that hangs in the balance.

That said here’s the main point that, again, I want to drive home.

That leadership eventually comes with a microphone.

If you’re a leader, at some point, you’re going to have to communicate concepts, ideas, even the future.

And if you can’t do this well, there will be a self-imposed lid on your leadership potential.

Great ideas communicated poorly are stalled ideas.

Put another way: Bad communication is the graveyard of good ideas.

But there’s some good news …

Great ideas communicated effectively gain momentum.

The challenge for many of us though is that we don’t see ourselves as communicators.

Let me be clear: if you speak words, and there are people on the other side of those words, then congratulations, you’re a communicator. You’re a presenter.

But the other challenge is that when it comes to presentations, many of us don’t do it that frequently, and we confuse infrequency with unimportant.

Instead, the once-a-quarter, twice a year, or monthly presentation might explain why people aren’t rallying around your ideas.

But remember, leadership comes with a microphone. And how you handle that microphone, and that opportunity, dictates greatly how you are handling your leadership role.

For the last seventeen years, I’ve been coaching leaders in both the non-profit and for-profit worlds on how to communicate and present more effectively.

Over those years, I’ve developed a proven and time-efficient process to help you.

Time-efficient is important because you probably don’t have time to go to a conference.

This is a simple, step-by-step process that you can implement for every presentation you’ll have for the rest of your career..

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