4 quick tips for instant impact, credibility and gravitas!
“How often do you think about the quality and the value of your voice? Maybe not that often and yet your voice and the impact of how you sound is one of your greatest assets…”
The Impact of your voice
The impact of your voice is the difference between being believed or doubted, trusted or unreliable, motivating or boring. Some personal development tools take time and practice to see results. So, if you are someone who – like all of us at 4D – sometimes likes super quick, instant results – then focus on the vocals. Because by using a few super, simple vocal tips you will immediately increase your credibility, authority, gravitas and status.
Current leadership trends include empathetic leadership and leading positive remote teams while one of the biggest business trends is increased AI. Your biggest differentiator in all of these – is your impact as a leader and human being. And the sound of your voice is a huge factor in your impact. Whether you are trying to engage a team, unite a workforce, drive a business vision or win a new job role – the sound of your voice is going to influence the outcome a lot more than you might realise.
Think of the number of podcasts, radio and TV shows or videos you have stopped listening to because the person’s voice was annoying or unsettling. Think of the leaders and people who have inspired you and how they sound. How a paramedic or nurse would calmly reassure a patient in pain. Think how an infant wants to hear a soothing, calming voice from its caregiver. How it’s not just the words we hear from a colleague, boss or loved one that helps us feel better in a tough moment – but the tone of their voice. The sound of a human voice has an enormous impact on how we feel, what we believe, who we will follow, the decisions we make, and the actions that we take.
So, don’t simply stay with the vocal patterns you’ve inherited or unconsciously picked up. Be intentional about how you sound to take your impact to the next level. In other words – Make a choice about your voice.
Here are 4 brilliant voice tips to instantly increase your impact, influence and inspiration:
- Pace
- Pause
- Pitch
- Precision
- PACE
Did you know that speaking more slowly helps you appear more confident and knowledgeable?
In a fast-paced world we can often talk too fast. With schedules getting tighter and diaries getting busier we can end up rushing our way through meetings, trying to squeeze in ever more content into a shorter space of time.
No wonder meetings become exhausting. By slowing your voice down, you will, in fact, be a far more engaging and efficient leader. Not only will you give your listeners a chance to digest what you are sharing, but your words will immediately have more credibility and gravitas. Speaking more slowly and emphasising your words gives more weight and meaning to your message. By speaking more slowly you will appear more knowledgeable, confident and in control. After all if you don’t sound in control of your voice, how can you sound in control of your business ideas? When you speak more slowly you are communicating that you don’t need to hurry through fear of wasting other people’s time, but rather that you are confident in what you have to share and are important enough that people will give you space and time to say what you need to say.
“Talk low, talk slow, and don’t talk too much.” John Wayne
TIP
Vocal Speedometer: In your next meeting play with speaking at half your usual speed.
- PAUSE
Harness Trust and Credibility with Well-Timed Pauses!
The pause is one of the most simple and powerful voice tools you can use. You can use the pause before you speak to demonstrate calm authority and to indicate that you are about to share something worth listening to. You can pause after a key message to give your words more weight and importance. Finally, you can pause during a talk or conversation to give your listener time to digest the information.
Pausing tells people that you are confident in yourself and your message. Taking a breath and a moment gives you time to think and focus what you are saying.
Holding back a beat gives your listeners time to absorb, understand or consider what you have said. It can help calm your – and your audience’s – nerves, meaning everyone has an increased sense of steadiness and wellbeing.
It will also help you reduce verbal ticks and filler words. And, taking regular pauses is a super quick way to increase your gravitas, status and credibility. Pausing really is the vocal gift that keeps on giving.
“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.” Mark Twain
Tip
In your next meeting – wait 2 seconds before replying to a question
- PITCH
There’s lots of varying research on how vocal pitch affects us. A good rule of thumb is to follow two rules:
- Vary your voice pitch to keep people engaged.
- Use a lower pitch more often.
Varying your vocal pitch
This means being more conscious of using more of your voice range. We all have a range of high, mid and lower notes in our voices but often we have got used to only using a small range. The pitch of your voice impacts listeners at an emotional level. Higher notes will create more excitement while lower notes have more authority, strength, certainty and dominance. Playing with more range allows you to take an audience on a journey – helping them feel secure at times and motivated at others. And remember your vocal range is a clear way to differentiate your unique human qualities from an AI bot!
Use a lower pitch more often
As a leader you want to anchor your voice in the lower range. A lower voice will communicate solidity, authority and status. This isn’t only an impression – we know that the human brain processes different vocal pitches in different ways. Lower pitch voices create a stronger sense of safety and leadership. This is particularly important to note for female voices or higher pitched voices. By simply lowering your pitch by a few notes, you create a stronger, more authoritative impact on individuals and their brains!
Did you know?
Margaret Thatcher, famously employed actor Laurence Olivier in the 1970’s, to help her significantly lower the pitch of her voice in order to sound more powerful, and ultimately be elected as Britain’s first female prime minister.
“We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.” Friedrich Nietzsche
Tip
To find your full vocal range read a few lines from a newspaper and see how low and how high you can speak over one sentence. Practice speaking in your lower range for your next meeting. A good tip is to imagine your belly or feet are doing the talking to help you lower your voice.
- PRECISION
Too many of us simply talk too much. In a business world that is flooded with noise and in a world that is drowning in content – less really is more. Being far more precise in your speech means saying less and saying it clearly. Precision in your speech shows self-control and focus.
Being precise in what you say helps you create clarity in chaos and communicate certainty through uncertainty. Precision helps you communicate a simple goal rather than a jumble of vague ideas – which means people will understand you, follow you and be clear about taking actions towards your vision.
Precision means you can resolve conflict quickly by helping everyone distil the issue down to one simple challenge you can then all work on. Being precise helps you appear more intelligent, less bothered about trying to impress and more focussed on clarity. Precision tells people your words are precious like gold – that’s why there are few of them. And precision in your speech gives you instant status.
“Lucidity of speech is unquestionably one of the surest tests of mental precision… In my experience a confused talker is never a clear thinker.” David Lloyd George
Tip
In your next meeting make your interventions one sentence or one question. If you are preparing a presentation – play ‘Half Life’ with your content. Do your whole presentation. Now see if you can communicate your message in half the time. Now half the time again, and again. Until you have one minute to communicate your whole presentation.
Check out our training programmes on Confidence and Impact, Leadership Development, Executive Coaching and also our 4D OnDemand Impact Series, to make sure you make an impact today.
