The New Rules of Public Speaking

You’re called to take the microphone in front of a room packed with people whose engagement you need and whose opinion you value. How do you feel?

Public speaking tends to spark some strong, visceral reactions — even among leaders whose jobs centre around it. “I loathe making speeches, and always have,” Richard Branson once admitted. Warren Buffett has said the very thought of taking a podium used to make him “physically ill.”

If you can relate, you’re certainly not alone. Glossophobia is a real thing, with up to 30 per cent of the general population experiencing diagnosable public speaking anxiety. In the quarter-century since Jerry Seinfeld joked that, at a funeral, more folks would “rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy,” the collective understanding that a lot of people truly dread public speaking has become as common as a dramatic pause at a TED Talk.  

But the public speaking landscape has also changed during that time, which means that those of us who fear standing up in front of a room full of people are operating on some outdated assumptions.

In recent years, audience expectations have shifted, and the speakers who resonate most with them have adapted accordingly. The slick and authoritative archetype established by the likes of Tony Robbins hasn’t gone away, but it is now sharing the stage with speakers with a more diverse and accessible range of traits and tendencies.

“People are looking for trust. They’re responding to personal connection as much as professional poise,” explains Jordyn Benattar, founder and president of Speakwell, a Toronto-based firm that provides public speaking coaching services to thousands of individuals and organizations internationally. “I don’t know the extent to which a voice that is ‘on’ — one that is performative, scripted or didactic — is really going to pull people in these days.”

Authenticity trumps artifice 

Benattar learned the power of speaking well early in life. She developed a knack for storytelling as a child actor, which she parlayed into an internationally competitive debate and speaking career in her teen years. “As I became more proficient, more articulate, more concise and more confident speaking to large groups of people, I noticed that people noticed me,” Benattar explains. “I saw the respect you earn and the credibility that you carry by virtue of how you present yourself.” (Fun fact: Benattar started Speakwell as a side hustle while a student at Queen’s University.)

The most effective speakers today are not those who ape a particular style, she says. Rather, they’re people who bring their true selves to the stage. “Audiences today place huge value on authenticity,” Benattar explains. Most audiences are sophisticated enough to see through artificial performances, she points out, preferring instead a what-you-see-is-what-you-get communication style. Audiences have lost the illusion that experts must be perfect to carry authority, and many simply relate better to speakers who admit to challenges than to those who project a glossier veneer.

“People want to see that you’re not performing, that you’re speaking to a room of people the same way you would in a one-on-one conversation,” Benattar reasons. “That’s how people begin to trust you, feel connected with you, and build rapport with you. If you seem completely phony to your audience, it’s disappointing for them — like meeting a celebrity who’s nothing like what they thought.”

Furthermore, most speakers are simply better at communicating when they’re not pretending to be someone else. That’s why the work Speakwell does with clients almost always begins with some self-reflection — not elocution, or stage presence, or any other tactic. “It’s not about training people to be a cookie-cutter version of somebody else,” Benattar says. “It’s about finding a speaking style that feels consistent and right and true to them, so that’s what shows up whenever they open their mouths. That’s really the only way to be a great public speaker. Otherwise, at some point, you’ll get out of ‘character.’”

Audiences crave connection

Joze Piranian, MIB’13, shares Benattar’s view that audiences crave authenticity — he sees it every day. Piranian travels the world as a keynote speaker and comedian, and he does so with a severe stutter. He’s noted a clear evolution in what moves the audiences he addresses: “I think there is less emphasis on perfection and more on connection,” he says. “I am perhaps not what one might expect a public speaker to sound like. But if we look at it through the lens of connection, rather than perfection, the style of public speaking I deliver is impactful and effective.”

Piranian often opens his talks by acknowledging that growing up with a speech impediment in Lebanon was very difficult and admitting that he often coped by staying quiet. He’s also upfront about how his eventual journey to find and embrace his voice — which is the subject of the recent documentary Words Left Unspoken — was not without roadblocks. “When I can talk about those challenges in a vulnerable way, it does create a connection with the audience,” Piranian says.

Why? When speakers lower their own defenses — by say, sharing a vulnerable story or joking about elephants in the room — audiences tend to react by lowering theirs too. “Emotion is the currency of commonality,” Piranian says. “An audience member does not have to have had the same experience that I did to connect with my story. As long as I am conveying emotions that they have had before — like fear, or self-consciousness, or anxiety — all of a sudden, a niche experience like mine can have a universal appeal.” 

Once that connection is established, Piranian says that audiences are far more likely to take in whatever insights or wisdom the speaker might have to share — and remember it. It creates a depth of engagement that simply isn’t possible via more traditional speaking styles that favour polished pontification.

“Audiences tend to gravitate towards individuals with emotional depth,” Piranian reasons. “When you can give the world a glimpse of that, it makes people feel like they are less alone. We all go through days when our emotions can be utter chaos, and when we can hear someone else articulate that journey it ends up acting as a form of authority.” 

Clarity creates credibility

Of course, it’s not just what you say that matters. It’s also how you say it. And on that matter, experts agree audience attention spans are shrinking and today’s best speakers know how to keep it tight. As Benattar puts it: “You need to hit the nail on the head in as few words as possible.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean blasting through addresses with TikTok-style speed or replacing substance with soundbites. But it does lend extra import to preparing a message that is snappy, unambiguous and memorable. “You have to have a very strong controlling idea,” confirms Matt Reesor, a communications expert at Smith School of Business, who teaches leaders how to sharpen their messaging. “And you have to deliver it in a clear and concise way.”

It’s always been important for speakers to anchor their talks in a key message, says Reesor, who has been working in the space for two decades. But the proliferation of distractions today means that few speakers retain the luxury of taking their time to get to the point. “The need to get that message out there as quickly as possible is one of the clearest ways that communication has changed,” Reesor says.

The through-line in all of this is a general desire among audiences for transparency — for speakers to put all their metaphorical cards out on the table. We live in an age of misinformation and fragmentation, and people want messengers that feel legit. “The facts no longer speak for themselves,” Reesor explains. “What people choose to believe depends on who they trust.” In this context, speaking traits like those flagged by our experts — authenticity, connection and clarity — help to foster what is perhaps the most potent commodity in verbal communication today: credibility.

“You can have really strong presentation skills, but if the audience doesn’t view you as trustworthy, it doesn’t matter — your message is not going to land,” Reesor says. “It really does all come down to credibility.”