Improve Leadership Communication With Roman Oratory
Authentic communication is critical in business and leadership. Conveying a value that is true from the helm of the teams will have a lasting impact on your customers and clients. During this "Great Resignation"--the flood of employees leaving and finding new opportunities--there is a great focus on for what matters to people. This goes for both internal and external stakeholders. Much can be learned from Roman oratory and how it can improve communication in your business. Many need to look no further than the eloquence of the philosopher Cicero.
Great speakers utilize Roman oratory to touch the emotions and invoke action. They go further by reaching to the intellect, logic, and reasons why others respond to influence. Lessons learned from great speakers and speeches that have changed the course of history are transferrable to a business. Branding, marketing, and leadership will all benefit from principles in Roman oratory.
Developing communication in branding and marketing that focuses on the humanity in others and what influences them is what those who excel in Roman oratory do well. They go beyond seeking the emotional response. The goal is to reach the intellect of the customer, client, or team members. Manipulating communication to avoid facts may show signs of limited understanding of this concept. Spoken word and written communication in this area for Roman oratory is about offering wisdom and insight.
Actions and words that are geared toward showing customers and team members about the story's "why" are just as important for emotional reasons. Your audience wants to know why it is important to them. Effective persuasion is done when intellect, logic, and emotions are all touched.
Cicero was quoted as saying: "In an orator, the acuteness of the logicians, the wisdom of the philosophers, the language almost of poetry, the memory of lawyers, the voice of tragedians, the gesture almost of the best actors, is required. Nothing, therefore, is more rarely found among mankind than a consummate orator."
Having a leader who may not be the most talented in skill and is highly effective in Roman oratory to communicate may do more for your team than one who is highly intellectual and a poor communicator.
There were five elements according to Cicero that made for a great persuasive speech. These can be adjusted for leadership communication along with content writing for branding. Apply these methods for communication, branding, or leadership
1. Invention
In this area, you are looking to address the goal or purpose for your message. How do you want your customers, clients, or teams to receive this message? It will begin a framework to narrow down the specific points or ideas actions are seeking to be made from. Supporting evidence along with reference materials to substantiate the message may further help add to the main ideas.
2. Arrangement
How impactful the messaging is arranged around the main ideas is key in this element. It would be wise to make them clear, concise, and well-constructed. Touching on the intellect of others with human emotion will create a lasting impact. Leadership communication that matches the spoken words may follow a similar framework. Be someone of value who will show in clear actions, concise messaging, and well-constructed cultures that allow others to provide the most impact.
3. Style
High levels of cognitive and compassionate empathy will allow for the style in how your language for communication is delivered. Cicero pointed out that the words used should be clear and vivid. Creating a positive impact on the audience from a strong voice. This is not a yelling or overbearing one. Rather, one that is confident in the factual and human response to what is being shared that will yield a positive impact or response. The leader's life should be the storytelling device that others are able to lean on to respond to the style of the communication.
4. Memory
The research that is conducted to support the messaging should be backed with excellent data. It would be wise to utilize the information to mind map messaging to match what customers are doing. With analytics and machine learning as proficient as it is today the better brands are utilizing data to win over their competitors. Roman oratory will only strengthen their position when combining data with it.
5. Delivery
The importance of compassionate responses should not be undervalued. Delivery in this manner proves mastery of this concept along with logic and intellectual prowess. Facts are delivered in a way that resonates and touches the hearts of others and are compelled to move toward actions. When brands, marketers, and leadership support deliverables in this way they show themselves subject matter experts. Distance is created between them and the pack.
Taking this spin on Roman oratory in speech an applying it to branding, marketing and leadership your business may position itself as a leader in its own right for mastery in communicating value and acting on it. The King James version of the Bible speaks well to this. Victor Hugo was quoted saying, "England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England."