Leadership Communication and the Limitation of Mehrabian Rule: Causes of Anxiety and the Remedy for Impact

Authors:

M. Kabir Yusuf

DOI Number:

Abstract

Regardless of misquotations, misrepresentation and criticism of the Mehrabian’s 7-38-55 rule of verbal, vocal and non-verbal communications,vocal and non-verbal aspects of human communications are, by far, arguably more impactful than verbal communication. This is because the former usually engage the audience at the emotional level. Most orators around the world, including politicians, business leaders and other influential persons have utilized this realization and talked their way into the minds of men and women around them. This paper explored the pattern of leaders’ speeches and identified the techniques they employed to influence their audiences. Using the Mehrabian rule as its framework, the paper has relied on library research methodology as postulated by Turnhout et al. The paper has analyzed the impact of the leaders’ speech at two levels; leaders are generally very passionate about the ideas they do communicate, and this gives them the ability to inspire confidence and move their audience to action. Because of their passion, leaders, the paper argues on the second level, naturally develop the techniques at varying degrees, of effective public speaking.

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