Presentation and Persuasion Skills

What will be an ideal response?

Throughout your career, you will be called on to state your case on a variety of issues. You will have information and perhaps an opinion or proposal to present to others. Typically, your goal will be to sell your idea. In other words, your challenge will be to persuade others to go along with your personal recommendation. As a leader, you will find that some of your toughest challenges arise when people do not want to do what has to be done. Leaders have to be persuasive to get people on board.55


Persuading others is an integral part of communicating effectively.

Persuasion is not what many people think: merely selling an idea or convincing others to see things your way. Don't assume that it takes a "my way or the highway" approach, with a one-shot effort to make a hard sell without compromise.56 Usually it is more constructive to consider persuasion a process of learning from each other and negotiating a shared solution.

Persuasive speakers are seen as authentic, which happens when speakers are open with the audience, make a connection, demonstrate passion, and show they are listening as well as speaking. As a speaker, you can practice this kind of authenticity by adopting the body language you use when you're around people you're comfortable with, planning how to engage directly with your listeners, identifying the reasons you care about your topic, and watching for nonverbal cues plus fully engaging when you listen to audience comments and questions.57

The most powerful and persuasive messages are simple and informative, are told with stories and anecdotes, and convey excitement.58 People are more likely to remember and buy into your message if you express it as a story that is simple, unexpected, concrete, and credible and that includes emotional content.

For example, the Chicago energy company Exelon wanted to build employee support for its corporate values. To teach about diversity, the company posted videos of its executives making personal statements about what diversity means to them. A finance executive told about being from a working-class family in England and feeling like an outsider when he took a job in a bank where most of the employees came from the upper class. When this manager asserted, "I never want anyone else to feel that way," his openness about his own life made his statement more powerful.59 Then, to be credible, a communicator backs up the message with actions consistent with the words.