Your Presence in Communication

Did you know Margeret Thatcher changed the pitch and tone of her voice to help her political presence in the 1980s?

When Margeret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the UK, I was a very young boy so I didn't notice, however, she transformed her voice from a high pitch to a more a deeper resonant sound.

Have a look at these fascinating videos to hear the difference. I will explain how she did this and why she did this in the article below.

? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28_0gXLKLbk

? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRQwLrpX61M

How did she do this?

Getting deeper or lower tones into your speaking range is a trick called low larynx or dropped larynx and EVERYONE can do this with practise. 

Why?

You want to sound authoritative. To do this you need to create as much space at the back of your throat, take a deep belly breath, drop your larynx and speak slower than usual. To get your larynx to drop, yawn....it is lowest as you start to yawn. Also please remember, fast-talking isn't conducive to authoriative speaking.

That is the technical bit and with practise you can achieve this. This is particularly useful when you are trying to open conversations in a dominant tone or are trying to convince. 

So why did she do this?

The obvious answer is it helped her political presence in a male-dominated field at the time. In a broader context, she needed to assert herself and create a more serious tone to match her serious words and her serious body language.

You see, to have a presence, be it sales presence, political presence, legal presence or creative presence, there are a number of things that to synchronise:

1. Your energy which is a factor of how you feel inside

2. Your sound or tone of voice which is directly related to how you feel inside

3. Your body language which is also related to how you feel inside

4. And finally, the actual words you use

When all 4 of these aspects synchronise with each other, there is presence, we feel like the person is being truthful, powerful and even vulnerable sometimes. Presence doesn't mean that you need to be all-powerful all the time, there is a beautiful symmetry in being vulnerable or even being quiet.

Margaret Thatcher, when she came into politics had 3 of the 4 components, all that was missing was a serious voice to match her other undeniably powerful attributes.

Nowadays, to have a presence in communication, we need to make sure that the way we sound matches the occasion. We must be careful not to get lazy with our voices, our voice notes or our virtual voices when we do a Skype call for example. 

The form of communication is important, what we say is important, however, if people can't see us(which is often the case nowadays) then our virtual voices need to be full of colour, passion and life to HOLD an audience and gain their trust.

The Power of The Voice - How to present, persuade and negotiate effectively

I am busy beta testing this online course which I wrote and filmed at this very moment. I will hopefully release it to the general public soon inside LinkedIn. Inside the course are all my Ninja tips and tricks to improve your professional speaking voice! There are some handy exercises too.

Next week, I will talk about another infamous woman who changed her voice to fool millions of people around the world.

Who are the most powerful female speakers in your opinion? 

Share your thoughts in the comments below. 

If you want to "jabba" with me directly to help with your professional presence, please email me on [email protected] !