How to elevate yourself as a leader when you speak in public

Last week, 20 executive communication professionals from across the U.S. earned a certificate in strategic executive communication from the Executive Communication Council.

I was one of these 20 fortunate professionals in the inaugural class of March 2025.

We became Leadership Communication Academy-certified after absorbing and internalizing 16+ hours of disciplined, structured, rigorous instruction delivered by master teachers from the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership: Helio Fred Garcia and Katie Garcia.

This certificate course not only delivered speaker training and leadership communication training but also storytelling strategies for business leaders – all in one fell swoop.

The research- and science-based foundational principles, tools and methods we learned apply to all aspects of executive communication – including speeches and presentations that leaders deliver in public to audiences inside and outside their organizations.

If you want to elevate yourself as a leader when you speak in public, here’s a CliffsNotes version of a few key segments within last week’s course, held at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

These summaries will help you if you are working on a speech or presentation right now and want to apply more discipline and rigor to your strategy and plans for executive communication.

Speaker training: 4 nuggets you can use

1 – Every time you speak in public, you either make your organization a little bit better – or a little bit worse.

That is because communication has power: the power to harm (when used ineffectively) or the power to help – to make your organization better.

As Fred Garcia aptly proclaimed:

“Communication is the continuation of business by other means.”

As a leader, it is your job to communicate in service to the larger business goals for the sole purpose of advancing the business.

But when you divorce communication “tasks” from their purpose, you create noise.

Instead, what you say must lead to a desired outcome. When you use the power of communication – the power of speaking in public – to make your organization better, people notice.

2 – When planning a speech or presentation, the first step is always the same: Define the desired outcome.

Step 1: Define the desired outcome asks this question:

What do you hope to achieve with your speech or presentation? What will be different?

Once you define the desired outcome, only then should you carry out the next steps – and in the following order, according to the Garcias:

• Step 2: Confirm the audience (is this audience the right audience to help you achieve what you want to achieve?)
• Step 3: Identify the change you need to create to achieve the outcome you seek
• Step 4: Analyze the audience (the hardest step!)
• Step 5: Plan the engagement (what does the audience need to experience during your speech or presentation so they change?)

3 – A small change in the sequence of content, who the messenger is and how that message is delivered can have a huge impact on outcomes.

Speaking off the cuff may sound like “authentic” communication – but there are risks.

Because speaking imprecisely can have meaningful – sometimes devastating consequences to the business.

There is value to staying on message so that good will come from what you say. And you will minimize the opportunity to inflict meaningful harm.

4 – Executive presence on stage is comprised of three factors: gravitas, communication and appearance. 

According to the Center for Talent Innovation, now Coqual, here’s a breakdown of these three factors:

• Gravitas -> Poise under pressure
• Communication -> Your ability to demonstrate speaking skills, read the audience and adapt to the audience (to ensure the audience has bought in)
• Appearance -> Bearing confidence (with boundaries to avoid arrogance); the perception of confidence translates into assumptions about people’s competence

Achieving executive presence requires strategy, discipline and rigor.

Understanding your audience: 2 leadership communication training tips  

1 – Never assume that your audience thinks as you think or does what you do.

Instead, determine the audience’s worldview. Put yourself in their shoes by applying radical empathy.

• How does the audience see itself? 
• What matters most to the audience?
• What does the audience care about?

Meet them right there!

Then decide how you can quickly change what they think, feel and know so they will DO what you want and need them to do.

(And always check your work: Based on what you know about your audience, how will they react to what you will share?)

Then be ready to calibrate your engagement based on their reaction.

2 – To analyze your audience well, answer five questions.

The questions are:

• What does your audience VALUE?
• What does your audience FEAR?
• What are the DESIRES of your audience?
• How does your audience MAKE DECISIONS?
• What are the BARRIERS to change in the mind of your audience?

When you speak to an audience, remember:

It’s not about you. It’s about them.

So start by taking seriously where they are.

3 storytelling strategies for business leaders

1 – Do not rely on facts to persuade.

Because facts alone are not persuasive.

Dr. Richard Restak, neuropsychologist and author, The George Washington University, said it best:

“We are not thinking machines.

“We are feeling machines that think.”

In other words: We feel first.

And then we happen to think.

2 – Learn the lessons from Lakoff – and apply the power of the frame – when you speak in public.

Cognitive linguist George Lakoff, formerly of the University of California at Berkeley, taught the following:

• How a person understands a sentence, and what it means to him or her, is a function of what a person believes about the world and the context in which the sentence is uttered.
• Frames are mental structures triggered by language, images and metaphor.
• Frames trigger the cognitive unconscious. (That’s important since most thought is unconscious – an estimated 98%.)
• When a frame is triggered, an entire worldview is triggered that determines the meaning of all that follows.
• Once we’re in a frame, we tend to ignore anything outside the frame; what is inconsistent with the frame bounces off.

In other words: If you speak to an audience in a way that doesn’t make sense in their worldviews, your communication will not succeed.

Only when you understand the audience can you get the frame right.

Because framing creates context. And (emotionally resonant) context drives meaning.

To manage meaning:

Message = Frame + Facts

When crafting the message of your speech, always start with the frame. Then present the facts.

This sequence matters!

Because your audience will make choices and judgments based on how they react emotionally to the frame.

Fred Garcia went on to give a real example of framing when he talked about the problem with the 2005-2010 GM ignition switch in the Chevrolet Cobalt, which could suddenly turn off while the car was on the road.

Initially, GM framed the problem with the ignition switch as a customer inconvenience that was too costly to fix upfront – which ultimately had devastating consequences to people’s lives – when in truth, this issue should have been framed as a safety defect.

As philosopher John Dewey said: A problem well-named is a problem half-solved.

In other words: If you misname the problem, you misframe the problem.

So here’s the question for every leader: How are you choosing to frame an important issue that you are sharing with your audience?

3 – To move your audience from an old idea to a new idea when you speak, follow the unique shape of a persuasive story.

The Garcias carefully mapped the shape of a persuasive story using the trifecta overlay of discoveries from Aristotle, Simon Sinek and Nancy Duarte:

Clear Structure (Aristotle)

+

Disciplined Order (Sinek)

+

Compelling Rhythm (Duarte)

=

A Persuasive Story

At a high level, here’s how this translates:

THE BEGINNING = THE WHY:

• Where are we now?
• Where can we go?

(The gap between what is and what could be should be as large as possible.)

THE MIDDLE = THE HOW:

• How it’s done now? How could it be done?
• How it’s done now? How could it be done?
• How it’s done now? How could it be done?

(The middle of the persuasive story requires creating tension and then relieving tension, time and time again.)

THE END = THE WHAT:

• What action must we take?
• What would likely result?

(Audience, if you say yes, here are the tangible changes in the fortunes of our organization. We will be closer to the ideal state presented upfront.)

Wrap-up: Apply these 9 principles, tools and methods

If you want to elevate yourself as a leader when you speak in public, keep the following top of mind:

The 4 nuggets shared for speaker training

The 2 leadership communication training tips

The 3 storytelling strategies for business leaders

1 – Do not rely on facts to persuade. Because facts alone are not persuasive.

2 – Learn the lessons from Lakoff – and apply the power of the frame – when you speak in public.

3 – To move your audience from an old idea to a new idea when you speak, follow the unique shape of a persuasive story.

Need help with your speeches, presentations and other strategic executive communications?

Contact Teresa Zumwald: a 20-time winner of the Cicero Speechwriting Awards who delivers custom speechwriting services, plus executive speech coaching, executive communications, and speaking and training.