Presentation skills have always been critical to career success. From a functional perspective, strong communication skills help leaders outline vision, motivate followers, and coordinate collective action. From a symbolic perspective, good presenters just look more like leaders. They come across as competent, capable, and charismatic. Indeed, some evidence suggests that their delivery matters more than the content they present.
But presenting in public can give people nightmares. They can’t sleep the night before because they fear stumbling over their words or drawing a complete blank. Public speaking is so reliably anxiety inducing that psychologists use it as a means of creating stress in their laboratory studies. In the Trier Social Stress Test, for example, subjects are asked to prepare a free-form presentation to deliver in front of an audience. In one study, just a few minutes of preparation triggered spikes in heart rate and stress hormones like cortisol.
For those who fear public speaking, I have some good news, and I have some bad news. Let’s start with the bad news first. These presentation skills recently became more important, and I mean a lot more important.
The AI penalty
AI has crept into our workflows—conducting background research, providing feedback, and, in some cases, even writing on our behalf. However, recent research suggests that people heavily discount others’ work when they think it is produced by AI. In one study, participants read identical pieces of writing, but some were told a human wrote it while others were told AI wrote it. When the piece was labeled as AI-assisted, reader evaluations dropped significantly, even though the text was identical. The researchers referred to this effect as an “AI disclosure penalty.”
Now here’s the important part. Given the increasing use of AI as a means of boosting productivity in the workplace, people are becoming increasingly suspicious when evaluating others’ written work. This means that if I didn’t actually see you write it, then I just assume AI wrote it for you, regardless of whether or not this is the case. To put it bluntly, we are not inclined to give others the benefit of the doubt. Instead, if you send me a thorough and comprehensive email, I’ll assume ChatGPT wrote it. If you send me a meaty and detailed analysis, my first reaction will be “Thanks, Claude!” Truth be told, you are simply not going to get credit for work that I cannot verify you produced.
So, what are the implications of this finding? One implication is that if everybody is discounting work they cannot witness firsthand, they are going to base more of their evaluation on work they can witness firsthand. This means that we must focus more attention on managing our performance when that performance takes place in front of others because when we present our thoughts, or explain our ideas, in person, the stakes just got higher. The audience will be using these moments to judge us more carefully than they used to because they know that AI cannot speak for us. As a result, the link between presentation skills and leadership evaluations has further tightened.
The skill AI can’t replicate
Here’s the good news. Presentation skills are like most other skills. They can be learned through an investment of time, attention, and effort. Yet, many people are reluctant to participate in presentation skills training because they find it awkward. Introverts may shy away from these opportunities because they are, in fact, shy. But their fears may be overstated. Research suggests that extroversion and communication skills have independent effects on evaluations of leadership. In other words, extroversion is not a prerequisite for being a strong presenter. It comes down to whether you can clearly communicate your thoughts. Can you distill complex data into a high-level coherent summary? That is, can you communicate in two minutes what it takes another individual to explain in 10? If so, then you should take the stage.
Within the broad category of presentation skills, one specific skill may begin to stand out more than others—responding calmly and coolly to challenging, impromptu questions. Why will this skill stand out? Because if audience members are inclined to discount work they believe is generated by AI, they may also be inclined to discount the prepared portion of our in-person presentations. They may think, “Those slides look great. They were probably built by an AI bot.” But if you handle impromptu questions with aplomb, they will walk away impressed by you because they know the answers you provided were provided by you, and you alone. How do you prepare for the unprepared portion of your presentations? Maybe it’s time to take that improv class you’ve had your eye on. It might help you convince others that you have what it takes to lead.
Practice works
Here’s some more good news. If you commit to working on your presentation skills, you are going to improve more than you think. Hands-on training works! In one study of presentation skills training that covered 16 different skills, analyses of coworkers’ ratings of participants’ skills revealed that trainees had improved on 12 of the 16 presentation skills after the program. These included eye contact, speech volume and variation, and overall clarity.
If you prefer to work on your presentation skills in private, this might also be effective. A recent study at Carnegie Mellon University found that students enrolled in a presentation skills course who were instructed to practice their presentations in a virtual reality space reported “a perceived increase in their own public speaking skills” and “a decrease in their apprehension with public speaking” relative to the start of the course.
The key is to find the right training opportunity. You need to find training that offers behavioral modeling (so you can see what “good” looks like), regular presentation opportunities (so you get more chances to improve), and high-quality feedback (so you can see how others see you). Training with these three key elements should lead to noticeable improvement in your presentation skills.
In the age of AI, your voice matters
If developing stronger presentation skills has been on your to-do list, but you just haven’t gotten around to doing it, it’s time to sign up for training now. As we rely more and more on AI tools in the workplace, people will rely more and more on how you communicate in person to judge whether you have what it takes to lead.