Leadership Communication Skills

This program will strengthen your ability to prepare and deliver effective communications.

Whether you are studying or starting a business, you will:

• Stand out as a professional, credible, and dynamic speaker in presentations and meetings

• Learn techniques for reacting in the moment when you are questioned or challenged by professors, peers, colleagues, or clients

• Gain the presence, clarity, and confidence to excel at public speaking

The program is in two parts — Part One is three days and Part Two is two days.

• You will build your skills in highly interactive and practice-intensive sessions

• 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 one-to-one coaching sessions each day, during which you will watch recordings of your practice. These will give 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 Part One and provides an overview of those sessions.

Choose material

You will practice with your own communication material. Pick three topics and bring any slides or notes you may have. Whether or not you have a specific meeting or presentation planned for each one, we will ask you to think about an audience you might deliver each topic to, so you can practice adapting the material to them and being persuasive.

Do not script yourself or over-prepare. You can bring work-in-progress. You will use your laptop to prepare content during the program and adjust it based on feedback.

Your first topic should be something you can make a 5-10-minute presentation on.

• Ideally it should get across a point of view or a recommendation, rather than simply inform

• If the material is longer than 10 minutes, you can condense it before the program or during the preparation period

• You have the option to use four or five slides. You can bring draft slides / work-in-progress

• You will be asked to try different approaches to the messages and structure of the content

Your second topic will be practiced as an interactive meeting.

• You will need 3-10 minutes of content. If you want to practice more interaction, you will not get through as much content

• You have the option to use a few slides

You can use the second topic to practice responding to challenges, interruptions, and difficult personalities, if any of those dynamics might be part of your real meeting, or you want to build those skills.

Your third topic will be practiced as a meeting or discussion with a group or individual who sees the world differently:

• A meeting where you are likely to face skepticism, active resistance, or passive resistance

• A meeting where the other participant(s) do not understand the issue being discussed, they have decided there are different reasons for a problem or solutions to it, or there is not consensus about the importance, urgency or risks involved

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.

Part One

Day One

Prepare and deliver a compelling message

Day Two

Get across a concise story, answer questions, and adapt skills to interactive situations

Day Three

Motivate people to think differently, handle resistance, and communicate spontaneously

Part Two

After applying the skills for several months, Part Two will reinforce the skills you gain in Part One and add new skills.

Questions?

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

About us

Visit our main website McAlinden Associates