Why is Public speaking important?

Why is public speaking important? We all come across situations where we have to exhibit our public speaking skills in front of a crowd, whether at school, at work, or with our family members. Good communication skills promote better public speaking skills. With the help of good communication skills, one can express themselves confidently and develop good social relations. With the growing importance of content and information, public speaking as a medium to communicate all of this information is also growing in importance.

So, there's no doubt that public speaking skills are important for every individual. Before elaborating on why is public speaking important in life, let's understand some examples of public speaking we come across in our everyday lives:

Everyday Examples of Public Speaking

In today's world, public speaking skills are not an alien concept to the common folk. You don't have to be a politician or an influencer to be giving a speech. We all come across opportunities to speak in front of an audience in our everyday lives. These speeches can be categorised into various genres like hosting a meeting, presenting sustainable goals, giving a toast at your sister's wedding, poetry recitals, stand-up comedies, etc. But it might not be possible to include examples from such a wide variety of genres. Rather we would attempt to explain why is public speaking important in everyday life by dividing them into three broad categories:

Giving Information through Speech

Informative speaking is the most common type of public speaking that we witness almost every day. It is the type of public speaking where the speakers exchange information with their listeners. The most common example of informative speaking is giving lectures to students. Recall your school or college days when you sat back and listened to what the teacher had to say attentively. Other examples may include an instructor explaining to their coworkers how to install the new and updated version of the software, a student giving a speech in the school assembly, or a trainer sharing their expertise in entrepreneurship with a group of aspiring candidates. Informative speaking is the most common type we witness in our lives, and its prominence highlights the importance of public speaking.

Persuading an audience through speech

Another common reason for public speaking is persuasion. In persuasive speaking, the most common example we witness is politicians and elected members convincing people and influencing change. But the art of persuasion is not just practised by people of such high ranks. The Greek philosopher Aristotle has given various tenets on the art of persuasion, explaining its importance in people's lives. We, as common people, are often called upon to persuade others, motivate action, influence a decision, or even reconsider a decision.

Everyday examples such as deciding a place for dinner or convincing our friends to buy tickets for a specific movie that we like also comes under persuasive speaking. You must have heard (or about) many motivational speakers or authors touching many lives with their influential speeches. These speakers earn millions of dollars to bring out the best in people's lives by persuasive speaking. But persuasion is an art that needs plenty of practice. This is why public speaking is important for students.

Entertaining people through speech

Entertainment is the most important ingredient of public speaking. Entertainment speech can be categorised into many examples, such as hosting a family ceremony, comedians, poets, and almost any kind of speaker who has the element of humour in their speech. Entertainment is essential to engage your audience. Even if you are talking about serious issues in your presentation, an unexpected comic relief is crucial to make your speech more acceptable. Entertainment speech is not only relevant for award show ceremonies, but even the prestigious scholars at TED use the perfect balance of information, persuasion, and entertainment in their speech to make it both interesting and inspiring.

Why is Public speaking important in life?

Public speaking skills give us the freedom to express our ideas clearly, understand others, and make ourselves understood. Studies show that communication skills were found to be most useful to recent graduates in getting their dream careers. So, whether you are a veteran public speaker struggling with expressing ideas confidently or a fresher waiting to nail a job interview, you are a fresher. Whether you are a student aspiring to charm everyone by giving an eloquent class presentation or you want to convince your team leader that you are ready for promotion, the importance of public speaking is evident for all of us in our personal lives.

Why is public speaking important in personal life?

Feeling nervous at the opportunity of public speaking is quite common. Although overcoming our fear of public speaking can transform our lives 180 degrees. The importance of public speaking in everyday life can be explained through the following points:

Makes you a confident speaker

When you have excellent public speaking skills, it automatically makes you a confident speaker. This benefit might not be hard to guess. Knowing the do’s and don'ts of public speaking makes it easier to overcome the fear of speaking in front of a crowd and express your ideas more clearly and confidently. Confidence is the main ingredient in the recipe for success. When you are confident about yourself and do not fear confronting people, you can effectively pitch your ideas and persuade them to say "yes" to your ideas and proposals. This is why public speaking is important in our personal lives.

When we come across important opportunities in life to deal with people and share our important inceptions, self-doubt easily kicks in and shakes the very foundation of the belief in ourselves. But having excellent communication skills also equips you with great cognitive advantages that help you in all walks of life and gives you immense confidence in yourself.

Develops critical thinking skills

During the public speaking training, every learner comes across various problems and challenges, and they have to find appropriate solutions to deal with the said problems. So, one of the importance of public speaking in our daily lives lies in acquiring problem-solving skills. Critical thinking skills is one of the greatest advantage an individual experiences while learning public speaking skills.

While preparing a speech or presentation on a given topic, the learners are required to critically analyse the problem in the topic to come up with possible solutions. In this process, learners develop their opinions based on extensive research and critical thinking. At first, they may feel shy about presenting their thoughts and ideas in front of a crowd, but they gradually grow more confident with professional guidance.

Enhances verbal and non-verbal communication

Another importance of public speaking in our daily lives is improving verbal and non-verbal skills. Most of us might not be aware of the minute details of communication, like using the tone and pace of our voice to convey our message effectively. Taking a public speaking course will finetune the verbal and non-verbal skills such as voice modulation, body postures, eye contact, and hand gestures to become effective communicators. After a few days of attending a public speaking course, learners start experiencing changes in their overall communication skills.

Sometimes, we don't even realise that we are slouching while speaking in front of a crowd or the most common error while speaking in public is the use of too many filler words like 'um', 'ah', 'like', and 'you know’. It becomes a general habit if not corrected at an early age. The expert instructors at public speaking courses help us target these errors and give us practical strategies to rectify them.

Increases self-esteem

The fear of expressing ourselves in public impacts our self-esteem. When you master the life skill of public speaking, it becomes easy to open up and interact with people. The charm and effect of public speaking skills influence others to explain why public speaking is important.

With the help of effective communication skills, we can influence change in ourselves and change the whole community around us. You must have heard many motivational speakers who, after mastering this art, start bringing positive changes in their lives and others.

When we become a part of something so big and important, our self-esteem increases, self-esteem is important for the better functioning of an individual in all walks of life. People achieve their goals, dream jobs, and enhance social relationships with high self-esteem.

Fine-tunes your research skills

Public speaking develops great research skills and gives you different perspectives to think and form your answer. When you prepare a speech, the first thing you do while writing the draft is research the topic of your speech. The importance of public speaking is reflected in our ability to think about any subject from different angles. When researching a topic, we need to consider the listener's point of view. We form our speech in a way that gives value to the listeners and influences a positive change in them.

The public speaking courses provide various activities and exercises for the learners to give them a chance to practice their research skills. When you listen to different public speakers while preparing your speech, you start observing the important arguments and pertinent issues. This refines your analytical and rational thinking skills.

Develops the art of storytelling

The art of storytelling is invaluable in our daily lives. If you think closely, you will notice that we tell stories every day to different people we come across. As you discuss the events of your day at home or explain the importance of ethics in an office meeting with the help of examples, you will find the presence of stories everywhere. Storytelling helps us understand and explain things in a better way. So, another great importance of public speaking is learning the art of storytelling.

With good communication skills, we won't hold back expressing ourselves in front of others in a bold voice. The art of storytelling is not just effective in charming people around us, but it is also a great way of claiming a unique identity.

In this world, all the information is shared in the form of stories, as stories break down complex facts that are easy to understand. So learning this art will turn us into effective communicators who can convey any message clearly and maybe with a streak of entertainment.

Importance of Public speaking in career success

Crack Job Interviews

The most prominent importance of public speaking is showing confidence during job interviews. After graduating from any discipline, facing interviews is inevitable for every job aspiring candidate.

There are thousands of resumes floating in the market, and the people hiring you want to know how you are different from the rest. Interviews are meant to evaluate the candidates' potential, including good public speaking skills. If you have good communication skills, you will be able to present your strengths and weaknesses clearly and explain without any hesitation to them how your innovative ideas can be useful for their company.

Articulation of ideas

Public speaking courses train you to articulate your ideas in a loud and clear voice. Every company search for employees who can bring in new and creative ideas and contribute to the whole team's performance. But besides having great ideas, it is also important to be able to articulate the ideas clearly for the company's benefit. Unless the team leaders and colleagues do not well understand your idea, they will not be able to implement it.

Sometimes, we have great things to say, but we subside our ideas without even putting them forward due to a lack of confidence. So, why public speaking is important also lies in the clear articulation of our thoughts and ideas.

Promote your brand

If you are an entrepreneur or aspire to become one, you must have great communication skills. The more confident you are at public speaking, the more it will help you connect with other people and give your brand more exposure.

Besides your hard work and persistence in developing your product, promoting it is also quite important. With great communication skills, you can develop contacts with many important people and explain how your products can add value to their lives to your potential clients. Great public speakers can engage large audiences with their knowledge and influence their decisions.

Stand out in the Workforce

Not everyone jumps at the opportunity of public speaking. In fact, public speaking is one of the dreaded forms of communication. The importance of public speaking is evident in every career field. The higher you climb the career ladder, the more you require better communication skills to talk to clients and business associates, form connections, and communicate with employees. So, if you are equipped with this skill, you will automatically stand out in the workforce.

So, having good communication skills will give you an edge over others and make you stand out in the workforce. Your excellent presentation skills might even put you forward for a salary raise.

Why is Public speaking important for students?

Overcoming stage fright

It is often asked why public speaking is important for students. The most important benefit of public speaking is overcoming the fear of the stage. As students, we have many opportunities to speak in public, but we dodge them away due to our incapacitating fear of public speaking. But these opportunities give us a chance for overall personality development. Once we overcome the fear of public speaking, there is a whole ocean of opportunities waiting for us.

Better academic performance

Getting good grades is also one of the prime importance of public speaking. Public speaking courses equip students with many cognitive benefits like critical thinking, research skills, active listening, and many others that help students enhance their academic performance. Public speaking skills give clarity of thoughts to give to the point answers in class.

Enhanced body language

The importance of public speaking is immense when finetuning verbal and nonverbal skills. Some shy kids at expressing themselves develop a habit of avoiding eye contact, looking down or slouching. If these habits linger on until adulthood, they might create problems in their personal and professional lives. Early training in public speaking can replace all these negative traits with positive body language and prepare students for a better future.

Why is public Speaking important for kids?

Growth of communication skills

Communication skills are important for child development as they learn to express themselves clearly and with confidence. Public speaking courses prepare young learners for the next stage in their lives. Kids get better at making new friends, connecting with people, and resolving conflicts.

Active Listening skills

When it comes to exploring why is public speaking important for young kids, the benefit of active listening skills elaborates on how kids boost their academic performance by being good at public speaking. Active listening skills are an important part of communication skills that teach students to focus on important details. This helps kids attend their class lectures with great concentration and clear their concepts.

Developing opinions

As the kids grow up, they hear and learn about different things in their surroundings. Gradually they start developing their opinions, likes and dislikes, which is extremely important for their personal growth. But for this, the kids need to have rationality and power of judgement to form the right decisions and opinions. Public speaking courses develop critical thinking skills in children from an early age to see what is right and wrong in a particular scenario.

Importance of public speaking for working professionals

Generate more leads

There is the prime importance of public speaking for those planning to go into sales or working in sales. If you have great communication skills, you will be able to explain your products more effectively and convince them easily. Public speaking skills will help you generate high leads and take you to the top.

Building credibility

You must have come across various TED speakers and influencers who are vocal about social changes and other pertinent issues of value to people. Why do they do this? Public speaking helps them build their credibility, and when people trust them better, they can easily promote their brand or business. Similarly, for startups to succeed, public speaking plays a huge role. Even if you are an employee at a business, it is important to build trust among the working professionals to advance your career.

Expand your professional network

It is extremely important to expand your professional network, meet new people, and explore new ideas for business success. You will seamlessly build a strong network of people to develop your business and help others when you have great communication skills.

So, the importance of public speaking is immense for working professionals.

Conclusion

The importance of public speaking can be seen in all walks of life. When you are confident in expressing yourself in front of others, it can bring numerous positive changes in your life. This is why it is essential to start early training in public speaking to equip children with excellent communication skills so that they can face the world head-on.

FAQs

1. What are the three reasons public speaking is important?

Boosts Confidence
Help you overcome the stage fear.
Finetunes verbal and non-verbal skills.

2. How can public speaking help you?

Public speaking can help you express yourself clearly and confidently in front of a large crowd. It can help you boost your academic performance, advance your career, and enhance social relationships.

3. Why is public speaking very important?

The importance of public speaking lies in overcoming our fear of expressing ourselves in front of others. And the most important thing is that public speaking makes us confident and effective communicators. When we hold back from speaking in public, we are missing out on so many opportunities that can transform our lives 180 degrees.

4. What are the seven benefits of public speaking?

Public speaking helps us to: