The Leadership Skill Nonprofits Ignore Until It Hurts with Mitch Lomazov

But, but you talked a little bit about speaking, and you certainly have found your niche, going from finance and accounting and, and doing the coaching that you do, and particularly speaking.

I wanna talk about that for a second.

Why? Why is it so important for a leader to be able to speak appropriately?

You know, I'm reminded of, recently I was in an engagement, and they, there was teams of cohorts presenting, and they had an opportunity to present.

They had a 10 to 15-minute window to present in front of all the officers of the company.

Now, to get the officers of the entire company together, this is a rel- a larger-sized organization, one, it seldom happens, and two, to have them all attentive where it would be impolite to have their phones out, and so you have 10 to 15 minutes of their attention.

In those 10 to 15 minutes, you could have the most brilliant content.

You could have information that will change the landscape of the organization moving forward.

But if not articulated and presented in engaging, captivating, and confident manner, all of that work, all of that research, all of that talent will fall flat, and change doesn't occur.

So quite simply put, public speaking is essential because it catalyzes change.

And n- regardless of the leadership capacity and the skill set and the effort and experience you've had, if it doesn't get formulated in a method and it conveyed in a manner that allows people to understand, receive the information, and most importantly, do something with it, then what is it all for? And so I think speaking really predominantly allows people to translate their ti- talent, their time, their efforts into a catalyzing, a change mechanism.

And, and what have you seen as the biggest challenge for people? Why are they not effective speakers?

I would say it's, there's twofold.

The first off is oftentimes I hear, "Well, I'm just not a good speaker," or, "I don't like speaking," or, "I ha-," and, "I'm fearful of speaking." One, that's normal.

Public speaking is the number one fear over death, and, and so it's understandable.

It's a shared common thing that, the shared human experience that people don't enjoy doing.

But too often that becomes your paradigm, and that becomes your self-talk.

And so when I work with leaders, the necessity for them to first understand public speaking is no longer optional for you.

It's part of your job description.

And if it's part of your job description, are you gonna continue to tell yourself you hate it or you're not good at it or you don't wanna do it? Or are we gonna begin to reframe our perspective and our mindset to say, "If this is part of it, nothing I can do to get rid of it, how do I begin to seek to get good at it?" And I think it's once we shift that tide, now they start to go into momentum.

They start learning.

They start challenging themselves.

They put themselves in those environments, and it's, I like to say smooth sailing, but r- relatively smooth sailing from there.

Well, and that, that makes a lot of sense, that mindset thing.

And, and do people respond to that pretty readily? Do they recognize as leaders that, "I've got to do this," or is it, you know, push and pull? Are you having to tussle with them?