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Listening to a speech, it is very common to hear pause fillers like “er”, “um”, “ng”, “ok”, “you know”, uttered by a speaker. These irritating words usually occur at the end of a sentence or beginning of a sentence or phrases. Why do these unnecessary words have to appear?

These are the word whiskers, word clutches or pause fillers – the terms used by language communication specialists. Worse of all, this unproductive sound usually appeared frequently during important parts of our professional life - media interview and panel discussion. Still are pauses are important in a speech?

Why Are Pauses Important?

This is Part 2 of Tricks to Injecting Humour In Your Speech…

Previously, we talked about the 5 of the 8 frequently asked questions about humour. In this article, we will continue to answer the remaining 3 questions:

• When to use humour?
• What happens if there is no laughter?
• Where can you find humour?

How to Use Humour? 

If you are in doubt about your humour, don’t use it. Please remember that not every speech requires humour. It is also not necessary to use humour to break the ice with the audience.  However, if you wish to use humour, then follow the guidelines below.

Have you heard this maxim – laughter is the best medicine? Everybody loves to laugh but,  not everybody can make others laugh. It’s because telling jokes or funny stories is not easy and it takes special skill to render this part of the speech.

Researchers have found that having fun and laughter is good for your health. Norman Cousin, the author of the book: “Anatomy of an illness” confirmed that laughing has a remedial effect on illness. He was suffering from a terminal illness and he turned to humour and laughter such as watching cartoons and shows like “ The Three Stooges Shows” and “the Lucy Shows.”

It was the laughter that nursed him back to health. His doctor found laughter reduced the inflammation and infection in his body.

Since then there are reports that many terminally ill patients turned to laughter such as cartoons and comedies to get them better. Humour bridges and builds rapport with the audience instantly. 

This article is the 2nd part of the article “5 Roles of Leaderships“…

The Encouragement Leadership Role

The leader establishes a system of rewards and support that encourages and enables the organisation’s members. Although money is certainly a strong incentive for workers, it may often be less important to them than less tangible rewards and support.

The encouragement role involves three specific areas of leadership action:

“The new century brings new challenges, new people; complex problems, complex communication; this is the new era even the best professional managers are ineffective unless they know how to lead.”

~ John Kotter ~

Aesop tells the story of a dispute between two powerful forces, the sun and the wind. They argued endlessly about which was stronger. To put the matter to a test, the wind picked out a man who was wearing a heavy coat and taking a walk.

“To prove I’m stronger than you, I will get the man to remove his coat before you can,” boasted the wind. He blew with all his might at the man. But the harder the wind blew, the tighter the man clung to his coat. Exhausted, the wind offered the sun a try.

The sun cast a pleasant springtime warmth on the man. After a few moments, the man was happy to remove his coat.

In what specific ways do leaders exert their influence over followers and events? The point of Aesop’s story is that would be leaders, or powerful people in general, must have a variety of techniques and approaches in their repertoire of leadership skills.

The Roles of Leadership are classified into the following role: