The ability to remain calm in public addressing is always a must skill for the individuals chosen to represent an organization in meetings. Before their addresses, these individuals get preparations and lessons on handling questions from audiences without the questions triggering their anxieties. However, when the time comes, the audience bombards them with questions catching them off guard. Carucci tells this happened in his client to address remote work, stakeholders’ implications, and questions about the pandemic. When he was asked a question, the client nervously dismissed. The crowd turned restless from his dismissal, forcing the client to resort to reassurances without foundations to resolve this restlessness, further fueling restlessness and confusion.
With the novel coronavirus, people leave in the unknown times with raised anxieties making them ask their leaders ( Knight, 2020) . A leader can be anyone; a teacher, political leader, or parent tasked with answering complex questions, having no right answers to satisfy them fully. However, as a leader, you have formed to these questions honest and helpful answers; this only possible when such leaders master the below-named skills.
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As a leader, you have other people relying on you through these new times, and these people always have higher expectations towards their leaders. Therefore, as a leader, it is essential to acknowledge that this high expectation can only intensify your anxiety levels. It is common to see leaders deny their worries resulting from high anxieties in them, but this denial, while they think they are in control, destruct them, making them more confused. Therefore, leaders have to acknowledge their anxieties through interactions to allow all the emotional turmoil caused by these anxieties to quickly move through them, making them less likely to transmit the destructive emotions and feelings to others.
Whenever our composure is disturbed, we feel unsafe or be unable to communicate our needs ( Abraham, 2020) . However, when leaders can detect the need behind any problematic question asked, they can give honest responses to such questions. For our example, in the client's mentioned case, the need the stakeholders asked for government stimulus funding was not because they wanted to access these funds but also because of job security. Therefore, it is essential to know this need to present an honest answerer with the speculation of the underlying issues and avoid dismissive answers.
Another critical skill leaders need to adopt in facing unanswerable questions is by using broader questions to draw people out of their most concerned areas. This technique empowers its listeners, making them gain strengths. When they asked these questions, as a leader, you should be aware of the best ways of responding with questions that drive fear out of audiences, which are the stakeholders.
Whenever anyone poses an anxious question, answers are always judgmental because of anger, though it is never intended, intonation is because of frustrations. Leaders may be criticized, and this act is always a defensive behavior. In preparing for these challenging times, they should choose compassion to remind their employees of their jobs and their future reassurance. Leaders should know they are authority figures required to provide comfort to those they rule. Instead of being defensive in their answers, they should rely on empathetic responses to calm all their employees.
Leaders are the message, and in situations full of emotions, it is not about the messages they deliver, but themselves. Leaders should always have precise answers to all the questions asked. Tone, facial expressions, body language, should be used to invite trust from listeners. Leaders should use declarative statements when discussing issues they are sure about to show conviction and confidence and be speculative to convey unsure situations are manageable. Leaders should not be afraid of showing vulnerability, and through this, can gain empathy from listeners.
The best way to recognize if leaders have made a mistake is through the spotters’ reactions. Sometimes spotters can send messages to the speakers. When the leaders notice these, they should stop, pause, and apologize, and whenever the leader feels the questions are unanswerable, they should take time to prepare for their caring and honest responses.
Activity 3.
How to Answer an Unanswered Question is an article written by Ron Carucci and published on April 23, 2020. Carucci is a known author with several books and currently has eight books on Amazon's bestselling books. Among the eight selling books, he is also the author of Rising to Power , a recently ranked #1 book on Amazon as the best seller. Some of his free works can be found and downloaded freely by searching for leading transformation in the e-book. Apart from being an author, Carucci is also a co-founder and co-manager at Navalent. In this company, Carucci and his partners teach CEOs, leaders, and executives belonging to organizations and industries on transformational leadership skills to ensure that these leaders succeed and deliver competitive performance ( Rattleback, 2019) . The company also offers leadership and organizational development consults through the holistic approach they use to transform these leaders.
In his work How to Answer an Unanswered Question, Carucci gives a personal account of the client in many cases address the readers from the first-person point of view; for instance, Carucci (2020) says, "I recently watched a client of mine get bombarded with questions..." Using the personal address and other writing skills adopted in this article brings out Ron's informal and subjective attitude throughout this article.
In the same work, Ron is emotional, and this is visible through the logical reasoning he employs in this article when supporting his points and ideologists. For instance, logical reasoning is visible in this article when Ron tries to support his idea of leaders' need to listen to the underlying needs in every question they are asked. In this part, he logically reasons that the need underlying the question his client was asked job security but not on ways of accessing government funds as his client took it and finally led to restlessness. Ron reasons out that the client should have first acknowledged what was asked to get the need, which could have helped him not deflect the question. In this case, the writer feels for both the stakeholders and the speaker, showing their leaders never understand his emotional attachment, especially towards the audience, which are the stakeholders he feels.
The writer's informal and subjective attitudes are also evident through the language choice used in the article. Throughout this article, Ron uses simple and common language to bring a vivid picture to the readers what he feels. The author also employs slangs; for instance, he uses the term "spotters" in the article. Conversational language and use of phrases such as town hall and imaginary actors show how informal and subjective Ron is.
On many occasions, public speaking, especially when you are a leader, is not an easy task and has presented many leaders' challenges. In this article, Ron gives us an account of when and how the audience can trigger our anxieties through questions and teaches us how to handle these questions and ensure we remain calm even when the questions find us off-guard. Sometimes we do feel bad when the audience asks us a given question, which we feel they ought not; this in many cases makes speakers dodge or avoid some questions. Still, through this article, Ron enlightens us and advises us not to run away from such questions but on handling them. This article has changed my perception of how to handle questions asked to us, especially during meetings, that all I need is the underlying need in that question.
References
Abraham, M. (2020, October 10). How anxiety can impair communication . Calm Clinic - Information about Anxiety, Stress & Panic. https://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/impairs-communication
Carucci, R. (2020, April 23). How to answer an unanswerable question . Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-answer-an-unanswerable-question
Knight, R. (2020, April 20). How to talk to your team when the future is uncertain . Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-talk-to-your-team-when-the-future-is-uncertain?
Rattleback. (2019, November 4). What we do . Navalent. https://www.navalent.com/leadership-consulting-organizational-consulting/
