The Bullseye Principle

Chapter 4Communicate Like a LeaderInfluencing Emotion through Style and Delivery

Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.

—ANGELA DUCKWORTH

When it comes to leaders, few names in history are more synonymous with the concept of leadership than the name Roosevelt. Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as President of the United States from 1933–1945 and was the leader responsible for seeing the American people through the depths of the Great Depression and helping them regain their faith and optimism. He was also the first president to communicate directly to the American people through his “fireside chats”—the radio addresses where he would speak about issues of the day and concerns on the minds of the public at large. His wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, was a trailblazer in her own right, a pioneering civil rights activist, named one of Time magazine's most important people of the twentieth century. In a time when female leaders were rare or nonexistent, Eleanor forged a path of her own. Her ability to speak to the masses and motivate them to action became one of her trademark skills. Though she was once terrified of speaking in front of others, she was encouraged by her husband to receive coaching to help sharpen her skills. Eleanor practiced diligently, even acting in homemade movies filmed on the Roosevelt estate, and eventually blossomed into a polished orator and someone historian Doris Kearns Goodwin named one of the most influential communicators of the ...