The room where you speak is your arena. The more you make use of it, the greater your chances of reaching your audience. I often see lecturers hiding behind a podium or a lectern – the more uncertain they feel about the group, the more they tend to hide. Taking command of the space was something I learned early on as a speaker. And I learned another very important lesson: the more challenging the audience, the more tension there is – the more I have to gain by breaking down the barriers.
I still remember the moment this truly clicked for me, and it was a long time ago now. At the time, I was giving talks at different schools about racism and xenophobia – a topic that was both engaging and challenging. I was young, just a few years older than some of the students in the classes I spoke to. In some classes, the conversation was lively, and the discussion flowed easily. In others, it was quieter. But in certain classes, the atmosphere was downright hostile.
In one such class, there was a group of boys who mocked everything I said from the very beginning. Their expressions, body language, and interactions with each other made it clear: they were determined to disrupt the lecture as much as they could. And that’s when I made a decision. I left the lectern and walked into the room. I stood next to each boy, one by one, spoke directly to him, looked him in the eye, and let my full attention rest on him for a few seconds before moving on to the next. And it worked. They fell silent and listened. The other students in the class were able to hear what I was there to talk about.
And I noticed that even though I was nervous when I first stepped into the room, that fear quickly turned into a sense of confidence. I knew why I was there. I was going to deliver what I had promised to deliver.
It was something of an “Aha!” moment to step into the room, leave the trench behind the lectern, walk around and speak to each person there – and discover that it was actually far easier to connect with the audience.
Many years later, I listened to a fascinating TED Talk by Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist at Harvard Business School. She spoke about how testosterone, the dominance hormone, increases, and cortisol, the stress hormone, decreases when you use confident body language, or “high-status body language.” The same is true in the opposite direction; our stress levels increase when we use low-status body language.
Her TED Talk is excellent – I highly recommend it: Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are | Amy Cuddy | TED
That said, I’m not suggesting we should act or put on roles when we speak. I firmly believe that we all speak best as the person we truly are. But we all have different types of body language at our disposal. Use what serves you best when you’re speaking, what makes you feel your best, and what helps your audience relax and absorb what you’re saying instead of focusing on external, possibly distracting, factors.
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