Tell less, impact more… what leaders could learn at drama school.

Great actors and great leaders have one thing in common - they impact an audience.

How then, do actors learn to impact an audience, and how can that help leaders who are trying to do the same?

Actors are taught to think about actions, intentions and objectives

“Action is what an actor, playing a character, does or says to achieve an objective. Objective is what the character wants, or what the character's goal is. Intention, perhaps the most important job an actor has, is the meaning of the line or what's going on in the actor's mind.” www.backstage.com

So a character may be singing a love song (action), their objective is to make the character fall in love with them (objective) and their intention is to charm.

Thinking of this through the leadership lens then, an example would be:

You’re presenting year-end results to the board (action). It’s been a good year and you want the board to agree to an increase in spending for the coming 12 months (objective). You might decide that the best way to do this is to:

• Reassure them that the company can afford the additional spend, or...
• Scare them about the dangers of not investing in growth, or...
• Inspire them about what would be possible with the additional spend.

In actors speak - to reassure, to scare and to inspire are intentions.

The essential link between intention, body language and voice

I’ve talked in a previous article about the importance of tone of voice and body language on your impact as a leader - as much as 93% of the emotional impact you have on an audience will relate to what people read on your face, what they hear in your tone, what they experience in your energy. Gravitas training workshops will show you how to adopt power poses, where to hold your hands, how to relax your shoulders… you’ll learn to stop fidgeting, to switch up your tone and vocal range, to use silence to great effect.

These are all great tips and tricks, but there’s a quicker way to get there too. Play with your intention, and your body and voice will change all on their own. Try today’s experiment and see.

Today’s Leadership Experiment

Step 1 - Video yourself reciting a nursery rhyme, poem, song lyrics or prayer - anything you know off by heart. Doesn’t need to be very long - just 15-20 seconds. Watch it back.

Step 2 - Pick one of the following intention words:

Comfort

Reassure

Enthuse

Encourage

Excite

Step 3 - Hold that intention front of mind. See yourself speaking to someone and really needs encouragement or comfort. Feel that intention in your body. Imagine projecting that intention through space so that it really connects and lands with your imagined audience. When you feel you have captured that intention, film yourself again - this time reciting with full, embodied intention. Watch it back. How is it different?

Step 4 - Next pick one of these intention words:

Alarm

Antagonise

Dominate

Scare

Threaten

Now repeat step 3. How is it different? 

Two Caveats:

The purpose of this exercise is not to make you into a 3rd rate actor or an inauthentic leader. There are few things less impactful than a leader pretending to be someone s/he is not. The purpose of the exercise is to show you how important your mindset and intentions are to the impact you have. Next time you have an important meeting, a distressed team, a pivotal pitch… spend just a couple of minutes asking yourself what your genuine intention is, what emotional impact you really want to have on the people you’re speaking to. It will significantly enhance your impact.

Last but not least, given everything people are experiencing right now, can I suggest we all try to over-index on comforting, understanding and supporting intentions at the moment.