In our most recent Torch Talk webinar, we had the opportunity to hear from our special guest, and Legacy Leader, Audrey Taylor, CEO of netlogx! In this discussion, Audrey shared her experience and advice on how to make your voice heard throughout your career journey. As Audrey says, young professionals are likely to have apprehension on sharing opinions or recommendations, but organizations benefit when they’re able to share different perspectives and learn from each other.
How to Make Your Voice Heard!
Audrey shared six different tactics for listeners to implement to strengthen their communication skills and make sure their voices are heard. Read them below!
- Have Confidence
- When you’re comfortable in what you do, you gain confidence. People tend to regret the things they don’t do more than the things they do do, even when the things they did went wrong. Believe in yourself and the value of what you have to say.
- Practice
- Take time to find phrases you are comfortable using, especially key phrases that help start difficult conversation.Those key phrases are good tools to have to make sure that everyone around you feels comfortable before going into the conversation. Audrey also advised to keep in mind that passion does not always bring eloquence. If there is a matter that you are very passionate about, try recording yourself talking about it first and then listen back to see if you touched on all the points you wanted to cover.
- Come Prepared
- It’s important to bring your best to the conversation. Do your research before hand and plan out what you would like to bring to the discussion. Knowing what points you’d like to touch on help prepare you to maximize your engagement and bring your best to the conversation.
- Listen
- As you go through your career journey, listen to the people you respect and take note of how they carry themselves and speak to others. What is it about the way that they carry themselves and speak that make them respected? There is much you can learn just from listening to others speak.
- Be Strategic
- When you know your audience, you can be strategic about when and where you can add value to the conversation. Keep in mind, you don’t need to be the first person to speak to be the most impactful.
- No Apologies
- When you are intentional and purposeful with what you say, there is no need to apologize. There’s no harm in being direct. Remember – people want clarity! No apology is necessary for having an idea, disagreeing with other ideas, or sharing your input.
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