What introverted leaders said about how they manage Presentations and Public Speaking:

• “I have deliberately sought to do as many presentations as possible to help overcome my fear of them.”
  
  
• “I wanted to be able to speak in public and, at thirteen, volunteered to do the Rotary Club ‘Youth Speaks’ competition. Our team was carefully coached and came second out of four in the Junior Section. Nevertheless, I had not disgraced myself and continued to take chances to work at it. Forty-five years on, it looks entirely natural much of the time - but it's craft. Perhaps it is for everyone.”
  
  
• “When I do talk it is always from a position of knowledge.”
  
  
• “I’m not a particularly natural public speaker, but have found that with practice confidence grows. Emphasising my own personality helps.”
  
  
• “I try to be more expansive and walk around. I also try to make eye contact with individuals, or if I know them, draw them in - for example “I know Joe Bloggs from St Elsewhere’s (make eye contact) tried to do just this”.”
  
  
• “In my role of Technical Director I have to present ideas & concepts to Directors in a multi-national company. I consider it to be like acting on a stage. I have to emphasise my actions and speech in order to engage the audience.”
  
  
• “Writing out oral contributions/questions before speaking, especially if speaking for the first time in a large group or at a conference. This can lose spontaneity but it reduces the risk of garbling something that doesn't reflect what was going on in my head when the question occurred to me.”
  
  
• “Stopping to invite questions during a presentation worked well recently, as I was struggling to carry on without feedback, and once I got it I was absolutely fine and became very confident in my views.”
  
  
• “I went on a theatre based performance coaching workshop, followed by some personal coaching as preparation for big events. I better understood the value of performance and gained confidence to ‘tell it as it is’ and abandon slides and other visual prompts. I developed the ability to move out from behind lecterns and move about with a radio mike. I found then I enjoyed these events and that enjoyment and confidence was communicated. A big message of the course was just to be myself, and true to myself, but to project myself on a larger scale and engage with individuals in a crowd, not deliver cold to a sea of faces.”