The greatest communicators talk way more with their feet than with their mouths.

It was the Greeks who said one of the three traits of a great communicator is ethos, from which we get the word ethics. What they meant by this, is when you listen to a next level speaker there is just this sense she is actually living what she is talking about. 

Or to say it another way, the most important part of a communicator’s anatomy is not their mouth or mind, it’s their feet. The truly great speakers embody the message they are seeking to convey.

On February 3, 1994, a small, slightly hunched over woman wearing a habit, emerged from behind a curtain in Washington D.C., to speak to over three thousand of the most influential people in our country at the National Prayer Breakfast. On the stage, a few feet away from her was President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary. Scattered throughout the audience were congressmen, senators and Supreme Court Justices, who for the next twenty-five minutes listened as she read her speech in a matter of fact kind of way, rarely looking up, while pretty much breaking all the rules of great communication. Oh, and as if that wasn’t enough, she decided to spend significant time chastising America on the evils of abortion, saying, “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love one another but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion”. Now you would think her words would be met with the divided partisan response a president gets during his state of the union address. But this is not what happened. Just about everyone rose to their feet and applauded (President Clinton, his wife and cabinet held on tight to their seats, visibly uncomfortable). 

Mother Teresa was not done. She took things a lot further, going from abortion to contraception: “That’s why I never give a child to a family that has used contraception,” she said, “because if the mother has destroyed the power of loving, how will she love my child?” A few minutes later she finished her speech, and shuffled off the stage while the audience, once again, rose to their feet and gave her a standing ovation.

Just to be clear, this post is neither about abortion or contraception, nor an attempt to get you to speak on such leg crossing and uncrossing subjects on the occasion you get to address a room full of people with very different perspectives on these matters. Instead, I’m curious as to how in the world Mother Teresa got away with talking about abortion and contraceptives while reading her speech and breaking just about every law of effective communication? 

The great speech writer, Peggy Noonan, was in the room that day and also wondered how Mother Teresa got a standing ovation from many who had worked hard to establish the very policies she railed against? Peggy concluded, “She could do this, of course, because she had and has a natural and known authority. She has the standing of a saint.” No, this doesn’t mean we have to achieve saint status in order to talk about certain matters. What Peggy is helping us to see is what made Mother Teresa’s speech work that day, is the audience knew she was buying what she was selling. Mother Teresa had given her life to care for children whose parents had thrown away, and that gave her a kind of currency as a speaker sheer oratory can never give- credibility, or what the Greeks called ethos. 

It bears repeating: The greatest communicators talk way more with their feet than with their mouths.

Remember, every communicator brings more than their mouth to the speaking moment.

1. For some, the most important thing they communicate with is their pockets. I’ve met many communicators over the years whose primary motivation is money. You can spot them a mile away. They typically give a canned presentation that’s both impressive, and heartless all at once.

2. Others speak mainly out of their ego. These types tend to be more into platform building, than truly inspiring an audience in an intended direction. They’re in it for their own sense of significance, rather than helping others.

3. The best bring their feet. It’s the sales person who hits his mark every quarter, even breaking records, because when they pitch their product the person on the other side of the table gets the eerie sense that the salesman actually uses and believes in the product they are selling. It’s Winston Churchill, the great Prime Minister of England, whose audience knew loved his country to the core. And it's Mother Teresa who gave herself fully to the abandoned children of Calcutta. 

Want to get better as a communicator? Practice what you preach. Buy what you sell. Have ethos.

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