Three Effective Tips on How to Increase Your Authority and Persuasiveness

Business LoungeJanuary 8, 2019

Being a boss in a company or a leader in a group can be a tough job. As a leader, you need to set an example, serve as an inspiration, and convince others to follow your footsteps. You have to guide everyone towards the achievement of a common goal. Otherwise, you are all doomed to fail.

While some people are blessed with natural speaking and leadership skills, we cannot deny that a lot of us just didn’t possess it. We may find ourselves stuttering when speaking, our voice sounded hoarse, and just generate a weak aura which may seem impossible to convince others to follow our deed.

While some people are blessed with natural speaking and leadership skills, we cannot deny that many others just don’t possess them. You may find yourself stuttering when speaking due to some fear that hinders you from accomplishing your goals.

How can you harness your persuading skills to sound authoritative? Here are our top 3 effective tips to help you improve your credibility and authority as a leader.

Present Both Sides of the Argument

Both Sides of the Argument/Shutterstock

A recent consumer psychology research revealed that two-sided arguments are more persuasive than one-sided ones. Your teammates want to know all the available options before deciding which path or strategy to take. Likewise, it will also give off an aura that somehow, you have analyzed both sides and weighed the pros and cons before arriving at a logical conclusion. Your members would be at ease knowing that you have derived your solution or decision based on given fact. It means that you make decisions objectively, not subjectively.

Another valid analogy of it would be the large retail sites such as Amazon and eBay. When you are searching for a product on these sites, you are presented with all the features, rates, and images of different brands. Most of all, you can see the users’ reviews—both good and bad. This gives the customers an upfront view of the products. From there, customers have the freedom to analyze things and weigh their preferred product.

This system works perfectly. Picture the alternatives:

No ratings or feedback allowed.
Only positive ratings or feedback allowed.

Clearly, neither of these would be effective.

Therefore, remember to persuade your audience to your point of view. Make sure you present the both sides of an argument.

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Give key information at the start of your presentation

Our next tip is to give an effective primary introduction to your customers or members. This means that you need to give vital information or make an impact at the beginning of your speech to have their attention. One way of doing this is to maybe ask a question that they don’t know, or negate an existing principle that is already known. You can use the following opening statement:

Did you know . . .

Have you ever wondered . . .

Let’s debug these myth!

By giving out vital information to your audience, you will instantly hook them, making them interested in what you are going to share. They will perceive that the information you are sharing is valuable, helpful, and reliable. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you do not need to present all the information at the beginning. Just give them just what is enough to retain their attention and keep them craving for more.

Sharing compelling information at the beginning of your speech will not only catch your audience off-guard, but it will also help you boost your self-confidence and empower your persuasion skills.

Remove the phrases “I think” and “I believe” in your statements

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When you are trying to convince your audience, you need to sound 100% sure of what you are saying. This means that your statements should not give any hints of doubts and hesitation. If you are not sure yourself, how can your audience be sure that they’re committing to the right thing? How can your audience believe the credibility of what you are delivering if you are not confident? Let’s take an example for this:

For example, which phrase below sounds the most convincing?

“I think our product is of high quality and has good value.”

“Our product is of high quality and has good value.”

Statements that start with “I think” or “I believe” (see above) leave doubt among customers. Besides, the harsh truth is that your audience generally doesn’t give a cent about what you think or what you believe. They want hard fact, and that’s what you should deliver to them. If you look at the latter sentence, it leaves no room for discussion and hesitation. It sounds firm and decisive.