Voice is power. 2500 years ago the great Roman orator Cicero understood this. There was a Roman system of oratory that trained public speakers. It taught seeking out new ideas or lines of argument; structure and organization; diction and style; physical delivery; and memory (speeches could last for hours and as they were spoken and not read, they had to be learned by heart.) From Moses to the Sermon on the Mount, from Mohammed to Gandhi, from Adolf Hitler to the fireside chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Voice has changed the world from the beginning of time. 

By and large, however, today’s leaders—political, corporate, and social except in rare instances, e.g. President Bill Clinton, Vaclav Havel, Elie Wiesel, Martin Luther King, and the Dalai Lama come to mind, have abdicated their true leadership responsibilities because they have lost the art of vocal empowerment. 

For to be truly in mastery one has to be in mastery of one’s communication skills. This requires meticulous preparation, and scrupulous attention to detail, and as in any other form that teaches mastery, it requires the conscious integration of mind/body/spirit. Every business leader, political leader, great athlete, broadcaster, performer, and artist that I train is seeking the same goal—to be the best of themselves possible—consciously—in the moment of performance/presentation whether it’s training a U. S. politician during the last election cycle who called one Sunday exhilarated saying “Arthur, I breathed.” Of course, he breathed but what he meant was he did it strategically, consciously. Or the global treasurer for one of the big three U.S. accounting firms via in-studio work, telephones, fax, and/or email in preparation for a one-hour board presentation. Or most recently a speaking engagement at the Aspen Institute when after a mere hour and a half with a participant at the conference he boldly stated to his fellow attendees that he felt “his life had changed.”

With the advent of the invention of the telephone over 100 years ago, we began to lose the art of letter writing. Now, since the computer age, we have begun to lose the art of communication. Typing is not chatting. It is typing. And I see every day wherever I teach in the world, more than ever, people’s ability to communicate confidently in public. It is not a lost art, but rather a misplaced one. It is my professional and artistic goal to travel the globe showing one and all how to recapture their innate ability to be themselves whether speaking one-on-one or to millions. However, one of the challenges is that voice is the most intimate art form. We very often feel exposed—self-conscious rather than conscious of Self. Carl Jung even refers to the vocal area as the “ring of fear.” Sociologists misguidedly consider public speaking the greatest fear. As you’ll see in a moment, they’re mistaken. The Latin root for the word intimate “intimus” means intrinsic or essential. It is intrinsic to be who we are and essential that we must. So if public speaking is not the greatest fear, what is? There are actually 2 fears—fear of abandonment and ownership of our power, and nowhere does this become more glaringly obvious than in the moment of public presentation. We hold our breath. Our body language tenses. Our eyes flutter. Our jaw tightens, we speak too fast. Pitch rises. We wonder what others might be thinking of us, etc. In these ways and others in perhaps a most critical situation, we exhibit inappropriate behaviors that interfere with the messenger and the successful communication of the message. Clearly stress-related evidence, the bottom line is we are not in charge. Circumstances and an understanding of what it truly takes to communicate our message and embody leadership at the highest levels are not understood and have not been taught.

One of the primary precepts of my work in Vocal Awareness is the persona statement. The persona statement is fundamental for training leaders in the 21st century. The root of the word persona is Etruscan in origin. It is “phersu” which fundamentally means “through the sound.” We clearly live in a society where perception is reality. There is also a known statistic that says in all verbal communication only 8% is language-based; 38% is in the sound of the voice and 54% is body language. In communication via telephone theoretically, 92% of the information is conveyed through the sound of the voice, not the content. The simple and insightful persona exercise helps one create a template for how one wants to be perceived. I pose two questions for you to answer:

1. How do you believe you are presently perceived? (There may be different answers depending on circumstances.)

2. How would you ideally want to be known?

There is also an interesting metaphor that emerges from this exercise. One actually has a choice. When writing, especially the second answer, don’t do it in cryptic bullet points, but rather in sentence form, for the punctuation at the end of the sentence will be a period and offer us another metaphor. We are actually saying “This is how I want to be known, period.” There is no parenthetical caveat that says expect when I’m nervous or am lazy and I don’t feel like it. The period implies all the time.

Another fundamental technique for embodying leadership is what I call Visceral Language—conveying the emotion of words. In this work, we strive to 'Make Voice Visual.' One learns “to see the pictures” of the story they are telling and to literally “see the punctuation.” Thoughts are underscored. Quotation marks are employed and Vocal Awareness reminders are written throughout the text. In these and other ways, the speaker’s intrinsic voice begins to come through. Pitch and inflection change and a more natural cadence emerges to enable the speaker to deliver his message in a more conscious, committed, and focused way. Through the personal statement and the above methods, one’s opportunity and responsibility become clear—to do what is necessary to embody the idealized Self in every communication.

A few years ago I was speaking at the MBA school at the University of Texas followed a couple of weeks later with an engagement at GE’s corporate headquarters in New York. In Texas, I said to the 400 graduate students, “When you move out into the business world, people are not going to say to you, your voice is anxious or your voice is fragile. They’re going to say you are anxious or you are fragile.” It is all a metaphor. At Ge by and large, I didn’t see individuals reflecting the imprimatur of, at the time, the 9th largest economy in the world. I saw merely businessmen and businesswomen. What I’m saying here is that we need to become much more astute in embodying our persona, and our leadership brand.

The days of merely being business leaders or political leaders in an unconscious and habitual way are over. The stakes are too high. In these days of instant communication, mastery is mandatory. It is now time to require a new paradigm. Stating two axioms from my work: “The in essence of every discussion I will consciously convey authority, vision, wisdom, and attention to detail. In every conscious communication, I will convey and maximize the full potential of my persona.” It is our responsibility to our companies, our nation, and our world to convey our message in the most empowered way. To achieve mastery requires integration and integrity. Integration and integrity have the same root source. They mean “wholeness.” When we are whole and own our Voice, we own our Power.

Lastly, I will share an acrostic on leadership I created some time ago. It is not a stratagem simply for leaders in an antiquated paradigm but rather for leaders committed at the deepest and highest levels to profoundly conveying the message while embodying the messenger. Connecting historically, philosophically, and strategically with the legacy of oratorical masters of previous generations—building a bridge from the past to the present—recommitting to what it truly takes to be an inspired communicator is the inherent responsibility of the 21st-century leader:

Leading by example.

Empowered/Empowering/Ennobling/Embodying.

Anchor/Accountability.

Dynamic.

Excellence.

Responsibility/respectful/reflective.

Strength/Steadfast/Safe/Secure/Strategic.

Honorable/Honor.

Inspiring/Integrity/Intelligence.

Patient/practiced/passionate/purposeful.

Ready to embrace the leader within you? The Vocal Awareness Leadership Academy program is waiting for you.