[SOLVED] Effective Communication

Leadership & Career Development 1.2: Effective Communication
LESSON: LEADERSHIP 1.2
Effective Communication
One of a leader’s most important skills is their ability to communicate effectively. Recognizing that effective communication equips us with the power to influence others and that the primary goal of leadership is the ability to influence and persuade others, it’s easy to see why communication skills are central to being a good leader.
How we communicate tells a lot about our mindset and how we organize our ideas. Leaders must be able to convey their ideas in a clear and concise manner that enables others to accurately interpret the message or information presented.
How information is presented affects how it is interpreted. In this section, we will focus on understanding the process of communication. Next, we will discuss the process of speech organization and describe how different speech styles help leaders to motivate people.
How We Communicate
A phone conversation is a good example to understand how we communicate:
A speaker sends a message to a person or a receiver.
The message is coded in a specific language that the receiver can understand.
The receiver decodes the message to understand the meaning of the information sent.
To ensure the message was correctly interpreted, the receiver then repeats the message back to the speaker to verify the information sent was interpreted correctly.
This last step is important to ensure the information was effectively communicated from the speaker to the receiver. The receiver repeating back the message to the speaker, provides the opportunity for the speaker to clarify their message if it was misinterpreted or not fully understood by the receiver and prevents misunderstandings from continuing.
Types of Communication
Communication can be verbal or non-verbal.
Verbal communication involves speaking: using words to convey your ideas and feelings.
Non-verbal communication involves the use of body movement and position to display your thoughts and feelings. How we sit, crossing or placing our legs together or apart communicates information to those observing us. Where someone places their hands – crossing their arms in front of them, for example, can communicate whether they are open or closed to receiving messages or whether they agree or disagree with a received message. Folded hands across the chest can also signal concentration or boredom while hands down by their sides can represent focus and relaxation.
Speech: The Art Of Verbal Communication
The art of verbal communication through the presentation of organized thought is called a speech. Speeches are usually given to motivate or persuade others.
To be effective when giving a speech one must:
Good Posture
A great deal of your message will be coded on the basis of your appearance. How you stand in front of your audience conveys a great deal of information. If you are not standing erect in front of your audience, they will think that you seem careless and unenthusiastic about your own information and presentation.
Positive Facial Expressions
The look on your face is another feature that can disrupt or benefit your message. A smile conveys relaxation and confidence, which will persuade others to trust and have confidence in you and what you are saying.
Movement and Gestures
How you move your hands and feet as you speak will either help your audience better understand or become confused from your presentation. Walking back and forth in front of their audience while speaking might help the speaker to feel at ease about their material and help the audience to relate with the speaker’s method of communication. On the flip side, moving too fast or too slow can cause confusion. When in doubt, move in a calm manner that enables your audience to keep up with you.
Eye Contact
Directly looking at someone while speaking will make you appear more honest and trustworthy. Poor eye contact like reading out your speech line-for-line without looking up, works as a barrier between you and your audience and interrupts communication. Looking directly at your audience conveys sincerity and a belief in your own message – that you aren’t attempting to lie or to misinform the people listening to you.
Speak with Enthusiasm
If you don’t seem happy or at least interested in what you have to say people won’t listen. Showing an interest in what you’re talking about through both your verbal and body language will help establish trust with your audience.
Practice!
The best public speakers have all had to practice to develop their approach and method of public speaking. The more you practice the better you will become at giving speeches.
Types Of Speeches
A speech can take one of three forms: impromptu, informative, persuasive.
Each type of speech conveys the speakers’ ideas in different ways. With an impromptu speech, the information being given has neither been rehearsed nor prepared.  An informative speech is one in which the speaker informs the audience about the topic. A persuasive speech involves trying to persuade your audience to believe your take on things.
Each form of speech has guidelines to be met to ensure material is effectively communicated to the audience. Let us take a closer look:
Impromptu Speeches
The best preparation for an impromptu speech is to be well informed about people, places, and news events happening in your city, state, around the country and the world. This type of information will give you topics of conversation to talk about with people in different situations.
An impromptu speech can be explained according to its past, present, and future sequences. Events, issues, customs, etc. can be discussed in the way they began, as they now are, and how they are going to change.
Your speech should be organized similarly to how we write an essay with an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
Informative speeches
Informative speeches involve certain aspects of preparation and organization to ensure your audience comprehends the information you present.
There are four steps to preparing an informative speech:
Select your subject
Pick a topic that you know a great deal about or that really interests you. If you talk about something that you have had experience with or that you have an interest in will ensure your own enthusiasm in talking about it in a speech.
Narrow your subject
Many times knowing too much about a subject is a bad thing if it means you include everything you know in your speech. People don’t necessarily like listening to long speeches. You will lose their attention and your audience will forget the major points of your speech in unnecessary details.
Limit your explanation of the most important facts about your subject.  Be specific and elaborate on those main points so your audience will understand and remember what’s important.
Gather information
Include sources outside of your own knowledge on the topic. What you already know is a valuable reference for you, but having outside sources will confirm your facts and often provide you with new information on the topic.
Create visual aids
Visual aids help to illustrate your facts about a topic. It will help your audience understand your information and help them remember what’s important about the subject.

Organize an informative speech into four sections:
Organizing the information on your topic will ensure your speech is effective. Your speech should include:
An attention-getting introduction:
To be effective, you must first win your audience’s attention. Four proven techniques to do gain interest in what you have to say are to start your speech with a question, tell a story, begin with a well-known quote, or tell a shocking fact. Once you have their attention, introduce your topic and your objective.
The main body:
This is where you present your information. Include facts related to your topic and that support your objective – what you claim to be true about your topic.
Summarize:
Review the main points you presented in your speech. Repeating the most persuasive points of your speech goes a long way to ensure your message has been correctly and completely understood.
A memorable conclusion:
Have a summary – End your speech with a statement that leaves them thinking about what you said.

Persuasive Speeches
A persuasive speech aims to get others to change their feelings, beliefs or behavior about something. Preparing and organizing a persuasive speech is the same as informative speeches with a few modifications.
Organize persuasive speed into four sections:
Determine your specific purpose
Persuasion can have one of three goals: to convince listeners to change their beliefs; to change their opinion, or to change their behavior. While your speech can aim to achieve more than one of these persuasive goals, you must first identify what you want to achieve in order to plan your speech effectively.
Analyzing your audience
Be aware of how your audience feels about your topic. How they feel will shape how they react to the position you will be arguing for in your speech.
Understanding how and why your audience feels what they feel about the topic will allow you to tailor your speech to address any objections they have and to confirm the points they agree with, making you more persuasive.
Gather information
To be persuasive you have to be confident about what you’re saying. To be confident about your position you must be informed about the topic. Learn what’s important about your topic and gather facts that support your position.
Prepare visual aids
People tend to believe what they see. Make your evidence visual to help convince your audience what you’re saying is correct and can be believed.

LEARNING ACTIVITY
Leadership & Career Development 1.2: Effective Communication
Start a document and save it as  “Leadership 1-2”  Once you have completed all learning activities, click on the “Assignment”  button and upload your work.
Write an example speech for each of the three types of speeches.  Your speeches should be organized like an essay with an introduction, body, and conclusion (Refer to the English section on essays).
Keep in mind what makes each speech type different from the others. The introduction of each of your speeches must have a different approach to getting your audience’s attention.
Minimum Word Count: 600 words per speech. Effective Communication Effective Communication  Effective Communication  Effective Communication  Effective Communication