Leadership Communication Skills

for

This program will help you prepare and deliver effective presentations and meetings. You will strengthen your ability to:

Create clear, concise, and compelling communications
Use presence and tailored messages to engage and influence listeners
Respond to questions with convincing and confident answers

You will build these skills in a series of highly interactive and practice-intensive sessions.

Small working groups will ensure you have a very personalized experience.
We don’t think there is one right way for everyone to communicate to all listeners. Instead, we will help you strengthen your skills while remaining true to your own personality.
You will have several one-to-one coaching sessions, during which you will watch recordings of your practice, so you get a clear picture of your strengths and areas for work, as well as concrete suggestions for how to improve.

The rest of this page explains how to prepare for the program and provides an overview of the sessions.

Choose material

You will practice with your own real communication material. Pick a presentation or meeting that will happen after the program and bring any slides or notes you have. The situation you practice should be important to you because you will improve the content as well as your skills.

Ideally your material should get across a point of view or a recommendation, rather than simply inform. It is also best if the material is complex or there are different points of view about it. If you pick something that is too easy, you will learn less from using the preparation tools we will give you.
Bring work-in-progress. While not a requirement, many people bring draft slides. Do not script yourself or over-prepare.
You will present seven to ten minutes of content. If the actual material is longer, you can condense it before the program or during the preparation period.
You will use your laptop to prepare content during the program and adjust it based on feedback. You will be asked to try different approaches to the messages and structure of the content.
At first, you will present your content without questions or challenges, even if the real meeting will be interactive. Later in the program, you will practice responding to questions / challenges about your presentation.

Tell us who you are and what your goals are

If you would like to use a self-evaluation to think about your skills before answering these questions, click here. Many people also seek input from a few colleagues whose opinions they value.

Name

First Name

Last Name

Role

What would you like to improve about the way you prepare for in-person and remote meetings and presentations?

What would you like to improve about the way you conduct in-person and remote meetings and presentations?

Which types of interactions are most difficult for you?

What three skill areas would you like to improve during the program?

Tell us about the material you are bringing to practice — what is the topic and why is it important for you to practice?

Basic requirements above and session descriptions below

Overview of the sessions

Day One morning

Opening

Discuss the challenging communication situations you face and link the agenda to them.

Set goals

You set personal goals within our intellectual, emotional, and physical communication skills framework.

Increase presence

You practice telling a brief story — expanding your use of eye contact, voice and body language — to increase your presence, confidence and impact. We record your story. Together, we begin the process of giving and receiving feedback.

One-to-one coaching

You review the recording of your story privately with the coach.

Create a compelling message

You use our preparation tools to work on the presentation or meeting you plan to practice. You analyze your listeners and then create an outline with a clear opening, three to five major ideas, and an action-oriented close. We will give you feedback on whether your outline conveys a compelling overall message.

Day One afternoon

Discuss storylines

We discuss how to convert a traditional outline into a storyline — one that is easy for your listeners to follow, with persuasive data and examples to back up your key points and transitions between your key points to ensure they fit together to convey a cohesive story.

Discuss visuals

Visual aids can be powerful tools to support your messages, but they also can draw you into low-level details and make some listeners disengage. We discuss some simple techniques to design them well.

Build a convincing storyline

You expand the outline you created in the morning into a well-structured storyline. If you plan to use visuals, you adapt them to fit into your storyline. Then you talk through your storyline and any visuals and get feedback.

Day Two morning

Deliver an engaging presentation

You present a ten-minute version of the material you prepared on Day One. You practice and receive feedback on your ability to be persuasive and engaging. We record your presentation.

One-to-one coaching

You review the recording of your presentation privately with the coach.

Day Two afternoon

Concise executive summaries

You practice delivering the same material as a 2-3 minute executive summary, without visuals, to strengthen your ability to be concise and get across a memorable message. We record your executive summary.

Answer questions confidently

You practice answering questions and responding to challenges on your executive summary — with credibility, confidence and empathy. We record your Q&A practice.

One-to-one coaching

You review the recording of your executive summary and responses privately with the coach.

Questions?

Email us goals@mcalinden.com or call us +1 212 986 4950

About us

Visit our main website McAlinden Associates