What do you do if your public speaking skills are hindering your effectiveness as a non-profit manager?

1 Assess your strengths and weaknesses

The first step to improving your public speaking skills is to identify your areas of improvement. You can do this by asking for feedback from trusted colleagues, mentors, or coaches, or by recording yourself and reviewing your performance. Some common aspects to evaluate are your voice, body language, eye contact, structure, content, and audience engagement. Be honest with yourself and acknowledge your strengths as well as your weaknesses.

3 Prepare and customize your speech

Another important step is to prepare your speech well in advance and tailor it to your audience and purpose. You should research your topic, audience, and venue thoroughly and craft a clear and compelling message that resonates with them. You should also structure your speech with a strong introduction, body, and conclusion, and use transitions, signposts, and summaries to guide your listeners. Additionally, you should use appropriate language, tone, and style for your speech and avoid jargon, acronyms, or technical terms that might confuse your audience.

4 Manage your nerves and emotions

One of the biggest challenges of public speaking is to cope with your nerves and emotions. You might feel anxious, nervous, or stressed before or during your speech, which can affect your performance and confidence. To overcome this, you should adopt some strategies to calm yourself and boost your self-esteem. For example, you can practice breathing exercises, positive affirmations, visualization, or meditation to relax your mind and body. You can also use humor, anecdotes, or questions to connect with your audience and ease the tension.

5 Learn from your mistakes and successes

The final step is to learn from your mistakes and successes and keep improving your public speaking skills. You should always reflect on your speech after delivering it and identify what went well and what could be improved. You should also seek constructive feedback from others and use it to refine your skills. Moreover, you should celebrate your achievements and recognize your progress. You should also expose yourself to different public speaking situations and challenges and learn from other speakers.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?