On June 13th, 2008 when Tim Russert, the beloved NBC Meet the Press journalist died, Peggy Noonan wrote in her Declarations column, “When somebody dies we tell his story and try to define and isolate what was special about it–what it was he brought to the party, how he enhanced life by showing up. In this way we educate ourselves about what really matters.
“In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn’t, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. […] That’s what we talk about in eulogies, because that’s what’s important.”
Reading Noonan’s article, it struck me that we could say the same thing about public speaking. We make a show of admiring speakers who are clever, rich with data slides, equipped with approved platform behaviors and polished texts. But in the end, what we really like in speakers is Character.
Character traits that appeal to audiences are varied, but certainly confidence is one, tempered, we hope, with humility. Genuine interest in the audience is another appealing trait, and of course an empathetic understanding of their needs and concerns is also effective.
From the beginning of time, if there was a large project that needed to get done, human groups gathered to find the right person for the job.
They looked for two things. Someone who has the technical skill, but most of all, they looked for someone with the requisite character, someone who could handle the inevitable obstacles that any large project encounters.