We believe that there are four speeches every leader has to know—the opening speech, the executioner speech, the consolation speech, and the farewell speech. This typology of speeches helps the speaker to address suffering in a credible way.
The opening speech addresses suffering by calling the audience to invest time, hope, energy, and talents in the preferred future the leader envisions. An efficient speaker draws the listeners into this vision, which may include suffering and sacrifice, famously expressed at the end of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address:
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
We do not believe that the opening speech is a one-time event, however. Versions of the opening speech occurs on many different occasions—at weekly staff meetings, when the leader presents a new product line of the company, meeting stockholders, or at press interviews. At all these instances the leader has to motivate the audience to participate in the vision outlined in the opening speech. To exercise leadership the leader continuously envisions the preferred future. Therefore, the different versions of the opening speech are all directed to the future. This is what ancient rhetoric referred to as the political, or deliberative speech.
In the executioner speech, the leader himself brings suffering to his audience by executing a verdict by the power of his office as a leader. It could be by announcing budget cuts and letting people go, or it could be a judge giving a verdict. Curiously enough, in the executioner speech the leader inflicts suffering with his very words. At the same time, the leader offers a rationale for the suffering he executes, some sort of defence of the verdict. The leader does this by appealing to the legacy of the company. In this sense, the executioner speech is directed to the past. It articulates the legacy of a company—its past narrative—and draws the consequences of that legacy to give a verdict, which involves suffering. In rhetorical theory such a speech is referred to as forensic speech, originally a verdict spoken by a court judge, summoning the offences of the past in the light of the law (the legacy). For strategic reasons many company leaders give their executioner speeches, like cutting budgets, in the form of a press release in order to escape the media spot light. A typical example of such a speech is Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s downsizing speech from April 2012, where he announces that 2000 out of 14,000 workers will lose their jobs:
We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities. Our goal is to get back to our core purpose – putting our users and advertisers first – and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal.
In the consolation speech the leader addresses immediate suffering experienced in an organization when a large-scale tragedy strikes, or when workers pass away. This could be in the form of a funeral address or a speech at a memorial gathering. In form, the consolation speech is a eulogy , an appraisal. It is directed to the present. In rhetorical theory it is referred to as an epideictic speech. The appraisal resembles the speech a leader gives when a worker celebrates her fiftieth anniversary or when someone retires. Michelle Obama’s eulogy at the memorial service for African-American poet and civil rights activist Dr. Maya Angelou in 2014 is a typical example of such a eulogy:
She (Maya Angelou) showed us that eventually, if we stayed true to who we are, then the world would embrace us. {Applause.} And she did this not just for black women, but for all women, for all human beings. She taught us all that it is okay to be your regular old self, whatever that is – your poor self, your broken self, your brilliant, bold, phenomenal self.
Like the consolation speech, the farewell speech is traditionally understood as a eulogy. We will argue that alongside this epideictic motif in all farewell speeches, there is a more deliberative line of argument, an appeal to the future: A good farewell speech addresses the leader’s farewell or future absence, but more importantly: It articulates anew the legacy of the organization as something still worth suffering for. In this sense a farewell speech is a deliberative speech directed to the future. This is evident when General David Petraeus, leader of the US armed forces, gave his retirement address on August 31, 2011. As with many farewell speeches it was a long and detailed “thank you!” looking back on the years that had passed. Simultaneously, it was a political speech directed to the future. In the speech, Petraeus wants to secure and strengthen the institution he had been leading. One of the ways Petraeus does this is by frequently using the term “our men and women in uniform” to identify the military and the soldiers with the American people, and what it means to be American:
As our nation contemplates difficult budget decisions, I know that our leaders will remember that our people, our men and women in uniform, are our military, and that taking care of them and their families must be our paramount objective.
The Leader Speaks
Tom Hopper’s 2010 movie The King’s Speech portrayed 1939 Britain on the verge of waging war with Nazi Germany. The main character, King Edward VI, suffers from stuttering. He was ashamed of his lack of verbal flow and refrained from speaking publicly. However, the King’s silence was noted. His absence from situations where an oral address was expected gave rise to speculation. Unintended as it may have been, his silence spoke.
On some occasions silence may be appropriate for a leader. Some politicians and lawyers deliberately use the phrase “No comment!” to stop further inquiries. If such a phrase is uttered, silence is intentional. They are saying that they cannot or will not say anything. The politicians and lawyers use their silence to protect their interests or their clients. The King’s silence , however, was unintentional. He wanted to speak but was unable to.
We encounter a slightly different art of silence in Shakespeare’s play King Lear. The jealous king summons his three daughters to a merciless love-test, where he asks them to praise him. The two oldest daughters claim that they love their father, but they sing their father’s praise with a cleaved tongue. The youngest daughter Cordelia, cannot speak, although she loves her father with a true heart—hence the name Cordelia, from the Latin word for heart, cor: “Love, and be silent,” she moans, but only the audience can hear her voice. The father is pleased by the fake praise of the oldest daughters and dissatisfied with Cordelia’s response. He finally turns his head towards her and commands: “Speak!” She replies: “Nothing, my Lord.” The King becomes furious with her silence , disinherits her, and passes on her part of the kingdom to her treacherous sisters. Shakespeare’s play becomes a tragedy because of this misinterpreted silence . When the sisters seize power, they force away both King Lear and Cordelia.
In January 2013 a gas facility at In Amenas, deep into the Algerian desert, was attacked by a terrorist group. Five workers at Norway’s biggest oil company, Statoil (now Equinor), were killed. At a memorial service in one of the oldest cathedrals in Norway, the CEO of Statoil, Helge Lund, gave a speech to honour the departed workers and comfort families and friends. Throughout the speech he spoke with a low-key voice. When he came to a point in the speech where he described one of the departed employees, his voice failed him, and a moment of silence occurred. He tried to stick to his script, but he struggled. He paused, and his silence —only for a second or less—probably left a deep impression on the audience. This short moment of silence portrayed a leader overwhelmed by grief and loss.
Why does a book on rhetorical leadership start with the notion of silence ? The aim of this book is to understand the leader through the lens of the spoken word. The unsaid, the silence , pausing, is all part of the totality that we call communication. It comes down to this: every leader is a speaker, and she is speaking whether she is silent or giving a speech.
Perhaps the leader of Statoil did not pause intentionally. His short second of silence probably came spontaneously. Maybe a planned pause would have failed to persuade the audience. Classical rhetoric has a word to describe such an intended pause. It is called aposiopesis, a deliberate silence after speaking. Jazz musician Miles Davis—maybe inspired by composer Claude Debussy—is often quoted to have said:
Music is the space between the notes.It is not the notes you play.It is the notes you don’t play.
This strategy of ‘speaking’ can be traced in Davis famous interpretation of Summertime, where he intentionally omits some of the expected notes of the melody.
Public speakers like musicians, kings, actors and leaders can learn how to use the effect of pausing, and other rhetorical strategies, in their public speeches to arouse feelings. In this way, a leader can rehearse on how to appear sincere and empathic by the use of pausing. Shakespeare uses this artefact in his play Julius Caesar. When Anthony, Caesars friend, stands beside the coffin of the departed Julius, he bursts out:
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,And I must pause till it come back to me.
An actor was once asked to give advice to future pastors. Among the stories he told, was his father’s experience of meeting the local pastor when one of his children were to be baptized. When the pastor entered their home, he looked at his watch. At that very moment, the pastor lost his authority as a speaker. In the wink of an eye, he had spoiled his possibility to convey a credible message. The pastor had committed the cardinal sin of communication, equivalent to looking at your watch during lovemaking.
Quintilian, one of the great Roman teachers of rhetoric, had a lengthy discussion on the role of gestures in his main work, On the education of the speaker. Quintilian found that the posture of the speaker has great impact on the effectiveness of communication. If the body of the speaker is not serving the voi...