Skills to Go: 28 Ways to Become a Leader

By Aimee Lee Ball
How to become a leader

Secrets of Public Speaking


If you love to talk in front of an audience, you fall into a minuscule percentage of the population—people like Lisa Witter, who, as a child, deliberately got lost in the local grocery store so the manager would let her say her name over the loudspeaker. Witter turned that extrovert disposition into a career as chief operating officer of Fenton Communications, which provides communication strategies for clients such as MoveOn.org and Women for Women International. Here's her advice on how to make an impact:

1. What people want most from a speech is authenticity; you can't project that if you're reading from notes or a teleprompter (which is something politicians don't always seem to get). Have a stump speech perfected, memorized, and ready at a moment's notice.

2. Practice out loud and get feedback from family or friends.

3. Don't thank people at the beginning of a speech. It's boring.

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