How Introverted Leaders can Become More Confident with Communication and Presentations
I'm really excited about today's episode because we have a special guest who specializes in helping tech professionals communicate and present with executive confidence.
And I know that this is something that I struggle with in my career as a tech professional and as an engineering manager and director.
And I know a lot of engineers struggle with this, so I'm really excited to have this person here with us because he's gonna show us some tangible tips on how to develop these skills. And you're gonna walk away with some action items that you could put into place right away.
So with no further ado, I want to introduce our guest. We have Christopher Chin with us. Christopher, would you mind telling us, since you're the presentation coach and you're the communication skills person, I think you could probably introduce yourself better than I could. So would you mind telling us a little bit about what you do and how you help people?
Christopher Chin: Absolutely.
Lack of Soft Skills Training Resources for Engineers and Tech Professionals
Christopher Chin: Yeah, thanks for having me on the show, Doug. And to introduce myself, I started working in the tech and data industry at the beginning of my career. And one thing I noticed was how there's an abundance of technical training out there to learn new programming languages, technical skills, hard skills.
Rarely if ever are there trainings available to learn quote unquote soft skills. And I realized over the course of my career how important those skills are. I've encountered people who say they were not promoted for, let's say 15 years, one person said to me because they didn't have the required communication skills to be a manager.
Or someone that I used to know on a data engineering team who phenomenal technical person. But when it came time to present, they were very unconfident, unsure of themselves, and I believe that led to them being transferred to another team.
I started to believe that, yeah, this last mile of the process, communication and presentation is really one of the most important parts of the value chain. If you can't communicate the impact of your work, it won't have the full potential of its impact.
And I decided to make it my mission to empower us as technical professionals to become confident in our communication. To go out there on any stage, whether it's virtual like this or in person and be able to give really effective presentations. So currently I work as a communication and presentation coach for tech professionals through courses, coaching and workshops. I help people develop that confidence in themselves.
Doug Howard: As you're saying this, this really resonates with me a lot because what you just said, I think it was a specific person you said who was stuck and didn't get promoted for 15 years and it was because of their soft skills or lack thereof.
And it wasn't 15 years for me, but that happened for me. I had all the technical skills, I had the business knowledge of our product and our company. And I knew all the, everything inside and out. And for some reason, I just wasn't very effective at communicating my ideas. I didn't get it. And it held me back for a long time in my career. It was the only thing missing. So it really resonates with me. And I wish I had someone like you earlier in my career, cause I would have figured out how to get over that hurdle faster.
The other thing, that jumped out at me right now, just meeting with you here is I'm noticing your communication skills in effect. I'm noticing you're doing something that I call mirror and match. You're calming me down as the speaker. We were talking before we started and I was telling you, Oh, I, no matter how many times I do this, I get a little nervous. I started speaking fast and then you brought the tone down a little bit and calmed down the cadence. So I appreciate that. And I noticed it. Is that something you do intentionally with people?
Clarifying Misconceptions About Introverted Leaders
Christopher Chin: Yeah, I believe and this speaks to a lot of what we enjoy talking about in leadership and communication presentation is the idea that as perhaps introverted leaders, you don't need to talk a lot or talk loudly in order to command the room. That introverted leaders can be really effective within their space just by being authentic.
And I think that surprises a lot of people when they hear something like that. When we think of leader, immediately our mind jumps to someone who is charismatic, who is extroverted, who goes out there and is confident and can speak to anyone about anything. But introverted leaders, I believe also have a really big part to play in the sense that they're authentic, perhaps calmer, lower energy default setting can be a great way to bring people together.
While extroverted leaders can be great forces of change for creating social relationships and for taking command, taking charge, letting people know what they should do. Introverted leaders by taking a step back. By being calm and composed and creating an open space can encourage innovation and new ideas to come up.
So I think that there's a place for both. And for me, as an introverted person myself, that is the kind of space that I enjoy cultivating.
Doug Howard: I'm glad you're talking about that because you're right. There is this misconception about, the rah leader. You got to be the, the one for the gipper type guy and go out there and give the rallying speech.
And I think that's just so misleading because like you said I'm more extroverted than introverted. But I am just like most engineers, very analytical and rigid in my communication, at least naturally. And I get really lost in the details, but as I am right now, so just getting back on point though, I think the leaders that are introverted naturally and know how to harness that. They know how to really tap into that listening and tap into basically nurturing other people's ideas and helping them feel that comfort to bring their ideas to the table. Those are the leaders that really have the biggest impact versus, outgoing gregarious leaders who everyone just feels like they have to follow and fall in line.
Christopher Chin: Absolutely. I knew one leader in my past career who I remember most because, not because they were loud or outgoing or extroverted, but because they really paid attention. I remember I had a conversation with them once. I had brought up something probably months ago. We were just chatting about our personal lives and this leader I had brought it up months later and said, yeah, is this related to that time? You told me about that a few months ago. I was like, wow, they remembered they listened. They, they cared about me in that sense. I feel like leaders who really take the time to listen and as introverted leaders that can be a great skill that you have innately, it can really create a space where people trust you and they feel like you care about them and it inspires people to do great work because of that.
The 3 Pillars of Effective Persuasive Communication
Doug Howard: No, you're absolutely right and One of the things I really like about what you do, there's many things I like about what you do, but I noticed that everything you do with communication and the tactics that you teach and the principles and in your core pillars, everything ties into influence.
You're not just teaching, tactical things about, okay, structure your sentence this way. You're doing this because here's the human psychology at play. Or here's the influence triggers at play. Here's how you get someone to pay attention. I think that's so important because we don't really think of it that way as engineers. I don't want to typecast, but I'll pick on myself. I always naturally used to look at it like if I present the facts. They're going to agree, they're going to just see it my way and it's objectively true, but that's not the case. Everything is subjective.
There is truth in life, but their perception is reality. And if you can't create the perception that, your facts are compelling, then it really doesn't matter. And I think that segues into a question that I really want to dive into and get your perspective on, which is, engineers, tech, right? Facts, rules, and logic. Why is presentation skills and communication so important?
Christopher Chin: I would say that working in data gave me a great perspective on this. And this speaks to your point that you just mentioned, which is the subjective side of things comes into play throughout the process.
At the very beginning, for example, if you're analyzing data, you come up with a problem statement. What is the problem in your organization? That may seem objective in that you're trying to address a question that is a pain point, but it's subjective in the sense you chose that particular problem to address among all the other ones.
If you move along from that, then you've already addressed the problem, now you're analyzing the data. Why did you choose a particular angle to analyze in the data? Yes. The method you use is perhaps objective, quantitative, rational, scientific. But why did you choose that particular angle to take?
Because of your gut intuition that you know, that is something particular to the domain you're working in. That is an angle that people care about. There is some subjectivity coming into play again, and when you look at the results. How do you present those results? How do you create charts and graphics to represent information?
That is subjective again. It may seem objective because you're working with data and information, but the way you present it, you're trying to tell people a certain message and that is subjective. So all along the way, even though we as engineers and analysts and developers feel like we're doing objective work, there is subjectivity every step of the way. And especially at the last part, it's crucial to lean into that subjectivity.
You are telling someone something important from the information that you've analyzed and collected and people resonate not just with facts, but with emotion to your earlier point. I like to think of this like Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, had these three pillars of effective persuasive communication. There's ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos being your authority as a speaker. Can you command people because of the information you bring, the sources that you know that you bring forward when you speak. The logos is the logic in the data. Do people follow your argument in a logical, sequential way? Finally, pathos, the part that us engineers are a lot less inclined to lean into, but it's so important as the third pillar because we as human beings respond to emotion.
If I were to say for to you, for example, that people are three times more likely to die of diabetes than smoking, but If I bring up a snicker bar, no one complains. If I bring up a cigarette and start to smoke it, people do complain.
This is something that I saw in a Toastmasters presentation that won some kind of competition. They started their act with that. And they said all of those facts that I just said were made up. But because I created this performative aspect for you, I made it clear that diabetes has its impact on people. People are dying because of this. You felt something because of that.
Doug Howard: Yeah, I did, even as you were setting me up, I've still probably see my, I probably had a reaction to it.
Christopher Chin: And this can be used in good and bad ways of course. You can say something emotionally in an emotionally compelling way without any facts to back it up. People will believe you and it's not a good thing. That's not morally justified. That's manipulation. But if you can combine good data and logic. That you factually checked and that is correct with emotion that people resonate with, you can be an incredibly effective speaker.
Doug Howard: There's a lot to unpack, but I think the main thing that I took away from that is that, my engineer brain just thinks about it this way. There's three steps to the equation and a lot of times we're missing that third part, that critical part, that, that persuasive part, that part that really compels them.
And I think you said that was pathos. And so I'll ask you, your background is in data. I would imagine you're a very analytical thinker. How did you? How did you develop these skills? How did you develop this style? You haven't, I don't think you've said this, but I think you're introverted or you would call yourself introverted. So how did you come down this path? How did you change? How did you grow in this area?
Combining Logic with Empathy for Impactful Communication
Christopher Chin: I think that one of the most important things that tech as an industry cultivates is this sense of diversity and perspective, especially in the data domain in which I worked. People can enter this field from any domain previously. I myself entered data from music composition originally. So I come from the liberal arts. I come from a way of thinking that's different from the analytical thinking I developed later on. I like to think creatively, out of the box, critically, trying to connect things that probably don't go together. And because of that, I think of problems in a different way.
For example, when I used to compose music for people. I'm not just thinking about the notes on the page. You can think of that similar to the data that we analyze. I think about how will people feel when I perform that music, when I perform those notes.
In the same way, I think about when I analyze data, how will people react emotionally when I present it to them? How can I organize my information in a way that people will resonate with it? And I think that it's so important to combine that, let's say liberal arts perspective with that analytical perspective, because together, then you can see both sides of the same coin. You can see, okay, I have the information that is important factual, but I can also combine it with the way that people emotionally resonate with it and together that creates the experience. ,
Doug Howard: It's very interesting that you have this unique background and this unique perspective on this where you see it both ways. You can speak both languages. And I guess what I'm hearing you say is that you combine logic with empathy, which is, basically the full equation to understanding and persuading people and influencing people and that's what communication is. You're really trying to educate, convince, and persuade them to either continue listening or to agree with your point or take action. There's also an entertainment element to it just to get their attention.
How to Increase Confidence in Your Speaking and Communication Skills
Doug Howard: So if I'm an introverted engineer and let's just say I'm in a leadership position and I struggle in these areas. Speaking skills, communication skills, not even talking about presentation yet, but just how to communicate your ideas effectively upward and to other teams like where should I begin?
Christopher Chin: The number one recommendation I always give to anyone interested in starting this journey to become a confident, effective speaker is to record yourself. It's one of the most uncomfortable activities that we can go through. And for you and I, as people who create video content, it is probably the most uncomfortable thing. The first time you do it, the very first time. To see yourself on camera, to listen to your voice.
Doug Howard: Oh, and the 400th time.
Christopher Chin: Exactly. I still hate the way that I sound and look on video. But we push through that. Because we want to create better content. And in the same way, if you're an introverted engineer or leader, and you want to become good at communication, it's key to push through that initial discomfort, because discomfort is where the growth is.
So when you look at yourself on video, you record yourself giving a presentation or talking about something you want to bring up in a meeting. You watch it back and you say, oh, there's where I rambled a little bit. There's where I said or too many times. I could tighten that up a little bit, take out a little detail. By doing that repeatedly, you can iteratively improve the way you communicate all in the comfort of your own home without needing to get pressure from anyone else. And you can go at your own pace. And fill in all the areas you identify as areas of growth.
Doug Howard: It's funny you say that because I didn't do it intentionally, but I have this YouTube channel. I started it approaching a year ago and I couldn't bear to watch my first few episodes. I couldn't bear to edit them. I did, but I was just cringing and oh no, and overanalyzing everything, but it normalized it for me and it got me used to just okay, yeah, I'm talking too fast. I'm getting off topic. I don't think that made sense. I'm saying um, too many times. And you don't really notice these things, if you don't have some objective way to review it. It's almost journaling in a sense. It's you can't really dissect your thoughts unless you get them out and then take a step away from them and review them objectively. And that's what you're doing here.
How to Improve Communication Skills for 1 on 1's with Your Executive Level Boss
Doug Howard: So to record yourself doing a presentation, I see how you could do that for like, all right, I'm going to give this presentation on this specific thing, but what about for interpersonal skills? What about for having that one on one with, your executive level boss?
Christopher Chin: In those situations, what really helps is to do some form of practice, even if it's not recording yourself. What I have done with some of my clients is I've had them, perform both sides of the conversation as a way to develop improvisation skills.
So I would have them introduce themselves, pretending they're going into this one on one, let's say, with their executive manager. They go into the conversation, they introduce themselves, then they respond themselves as if they were the other person, and they continue the conversation back and forth. So in that sense, you are building that muscle of how do I respond to each and every prompt, and you're doing it all on your own. So you're developing the skill how to respond in both people's positions. So that's one way.
Another way would be to practice with a friend, someone who can volley with you, in terms of those skills. So this could be with a coach or it could be with a peer that you trust and you can just simulate those kinds of conversations.
This is something I recommend because it, it leans a lot into what we do to learn technical skills. For me, when I tried to learn programming, for example, Python or R or SQL, I would simulate the kinds of exercises I would need to do. So to prepare for an interview, I have all these practice questions. What would they ask me in the interview? Let me try and answer. Here's another question that they would ask me, let me try and answer it. I know what I would do to respond to each prompt.
In the same way for interpersonal communication, you can simulate the environment you'll be in the future, and then try and become more and more fluent with. improvising your way through those.
Why Empathy is the Cornerstone of Great Communication
Doug Howard: That's so fascinating. Everything you're telling me, I'm learning a lot. I consider myself to be a solid or good communicator. I definitely wouldn't compare myself to you, but I'm definitely not a novice on it, but I feel like I'm learning so much from you throughout this interview.
This is really great for me. I appreciate you sharing all these insights. I think that's so simple, but so powerful to just role play both ways. And, talk and respond as the person that you're going to be meeting with because one, I think like what you said, it prepares you for how to respond to all the, these prompts that you're going to get and the moment, it like improv, you said, but the other thing that jumps out at me is it's teaching you to empathize, teaching you to really consider the other person's perspective.
And I think, tell me if what your thoughts are on this, but I feel like that's a big missing point. I feel like that empathy side that really doesn't come natural to a lot of us engineers, it's something that we have to actively develop and when I say empathy, it's a broad term, it gets overused. Considering other people's perspective and what the world looks like from their point of view. Because if you can't speak that way, then you're not really going to resonate with them or compel them. So I don't know, I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that, where does that fall into communication effectively?
Christopher Chin: I believe that empathy is actually the cornerstone of good communication because what I tell my clients is the very first step you must do when you prepare for any form of communication, with anyone, is to know your audience. And that's a term that often gets thrown around and I like to dive a little more into detail about that.
I recommend knowing your audience in three ways. What is their level of technical proficiency? What information have they seen in the past? And what action do they need to take in the future? In this sense, you create a timeline of who they are, you empathize with them, you put yourself in their shoes.
You imagine if I said this kind of engineering technical jargon, would they understand it? Maybe not. I can put myself in their shoes and say, oh, I have seen a lot of reports in the past that show good performance for this particular metric. Now, if they're seeing a new version of this metric, that's indicating bad performance, how will they respond to that? They'll be frustrated, disappointed. How will you address that? And finally, the action they need to take in the future. You could put yourself in their shoes and say. What do they need to gain from communicating? And then by understanding that you can directly address that particular pain point and make your communication effective.
Doug Howard: Just to jump onto that, I was watching one of your LinkedIn videos the other day. And I loved how you said, just because you did the research doesn't mean you should overwhelm them with the data, because all you're doing is just confusing. As engineers, we like to show our research as a badge of honor, stat, stat, this is, a compelling point, at least in our opinion, a compelling point, but I think, you're saying it here, consider the other person's perspective. What's the core message you're trying to communicate to them and then just focus on that and empathizing will they get it? It really, that's really just boils down to that, right?
Christopher Chin: Exactly. There's a scientist who I've really admired, Richard Feynman, whose quote I think goes, you understand a subject deeply and masterfully when you can explain it in simple terms. And it speaks to the idea of understanding things from their first principles.
What we as engineers like to do is we like the detail. We like going into the weeds. That's why we chose this particular job because that's what we do every day. And we begin to forget that other people have different perspectives. Some people don't like being at that level of granularity. Some people need the higher level, business view. And by thinking about what the other person needs, breaking it down to the level they're comfortable with, that they need to know, that's the way that you address them in a way that resonates most in terms of their perspective.
How to Grab People's Attention and Capture Their Perspective in Your Communication
Doug Howard: Do you have any other tips on how to really capture their perspective and how to go deeper with that? Cause I agree with you. Empathy is the key to influencing communication. . So how can you really get inside their heads?
Christopher Chin: I had a conversation about this with a scientific academic researcher. I said to him, we were talking about this topic of communication. How can scientists and researchers and people in academia make their ideas more accessible to people. There, there's often a lot of data, a lot of stats in what they do. How do they talk to media, for example? How do you get a news reporter interested in what you have to say? And how do you make sure the news reporter conveys your ideas in an accurate way that doesn't remove a lot of the important nuance?
And I brought up in the conversation, I said, similar to this conversation, I said, we need to bring more emotion into the conversation. How do we want people to feel about it? And of course, the natural pushback against that is we as engineers don't like the idea of emotion in many ways. We want to be objective. scientific and rational to come up with our answers. And I've been thinking about this for a long time. How to express to scientists, engineers, developers, analysts, that emotion is important? And I like to think of it like, it's the way to make it maximally accessible to people.
For example, in data visualization, there are a lot of colors we can use. We can use red for bad and green for good, but a significant, though small portion of the population cannot see red and green well simultaneously. So what do we do in order to make it maximally accessible? We don't use red and green simultaneously. We choose different colors.
In the same way, when we're trying to express information to someone, we can use a bunch of different colors, a lot of different words. But in order to make sure it's maximally accessible for them, we choose the words to use. We choose the way to express it in a way that they can understand and see and listen to and understand and comprehend.
So that for me is the way to think about it. That it's not about necessarily bringing emotion and muddying up all our objective insights, but trying to make it more accessible for people on a wavelength that they understand.
Doug Howard: As you're saying that, I guess the thing that's jumping out at me is, if you really care about conveying the message, and you want to have that impact, then you need to look at it this way and get away from this. I just want to stick to objective logic and, ignore emotions because I'm not comfortable with that. If you really care about getting the results you want, then you need to tap into that discomfort a little bit and work in these areas and explore these areas.
Finding Your Natural Speaking Cadence and Communication Style
Doug Howard: One question I have as I'm talking with you about this, I noticed as we're talking, we have two completely different communication styles. I'm just curious, how do you feel like speaking cadence and speaking tone and intonation. Like, how does that play into this? And how do you develop a style that's comfortable for you? Because I always like to tell my, my, like the people I work with, we're engineers, we're not actors. We want it to be natural. We want it to feel right..
Christopher Chin: One thing that I struggled with intensely when I was trying to find my, let's say identity as a, an individual contributor, as a teacher, as a leader is understanding how I wanted to present myself. And originally I had the conception of a leader as I, as we talked about before, that it has to be this extroverted, outgoing, charismatic person. And I tried to make myself that way at the beginning of my career. I said, all right, when I enter the workforce, I'm going to reinvent myself. I don't like this introverted side of myself that is authentic, yes, but perhaps doesn't resonate as much with people. So I'm going to try and make myself as extroverted as possible. I'm going to turn that on in meetings and presentation settings. And going through that, I realized how challenging and how misguided of an approach that was because it was fake. It wasn't me. I was trying to be someone else.
And that's something you can immediately sense some very often with people if they're trying to be someone different from who they are. And also it's exhausting for you to try and be someone different from who you really are.
As the years went by, I realized I need to approach this in a different way. I need to be my authentic self so I'm not exhausted and I can show up and not have people feel like I'm not the person I claim to be. And I decided the best approach is really the same that I recommend my clients take in public speaking. You are still yourself, but you just turn the dial up 10 to 20% when you go to present.
I like to think of it in terms of this analogy, you have, for example, a sound system, you play music from it, you can turn the volume up and down, it's still the same sound system. When you go to speak and present in, let's say, a formal presentation, you have the sound system and you turn the dial up, let's say, 10 to 20%. That is you, but just a boosted version of you that's capable of leading and commanding the space. That is better than trying to use an entirely different sound system and turning the dial up because that's just not you, that's just not what you're familiar and comfortable with.
So my advice to people who want to develop their own authentic communication style is lean into your strengths, understand how you speak and what people resonate best with, and just turn that up 10 to 20%. Don't try to be someone different from who you are. Understand where you find yourself to be best and just augment that.
Doug Howard: I think that's brilliant advice, and you hit on a lot of great points there, but I think the biggest thing that's, that at least resonates with me is you got to be true to your authentic self. It takes work to be something you're not. And that's where people get burnt out and exhausted and they end up thinking they're in the wrong line of work or they don't want to do this anymore. And it's exhausting. We're not actors. We're, we're engineers or we're professionals in some area. So I think that's brilliant advice.
What are some other areas or ways that people can practice these skills on their own? Because I would imagine if you're introverted, we talked about recording, but it's probably not the most comfortable to just practice in real life scenarios. So do you have any other tips for how to practice this on your own?
Christopher Chin: There are also AI tools, I believe. There's one called Yoodli, I wanna say. And this is where you do, in a sense, not necessarily record yourself, but you talk to PowerPoint or whatever tool it is that you use. And then it can measure your speech and say, this is how many filler words you use. You should reduce that a little bit, or you didn't pause long enough. You should increase that a little bit. So there are tools out there that can work with you and help you develop those skills, giving you that real time feedback. So if you don't like the idea of recording yourself, watching it back, assessing areas of growth, you can use those kinds of tools to make that same kind of journey.
Doug Howard: I know you have a lot of free resources when I see you posting on LinkedIn. Do you have any resources that can help people with this?
Christopher Chin: Yeah, I put together a free ebook on presentation and storytelling specifically for the data and tech domain that goes through various aspects of delivering a presentation. So how do you prepare for the presentation? How do you actually deliver the presentation? How do you make sure that people are engaged? And it connects to my YouTube channel as well, where I have these short tips on little incremental things you can adjust in your presentation communication style to make it even more effective. And the compliments of both of those is, I feel a great research for people to access as well.
Doug Howard: I'm gonna put a link to that in the episode description. But is that on your website or where should people go to find that?
Christopher Chin: Yeah, that's on my website, thehiddenspeaker. com, and it's readily accessible from various buttons on the homepage. You can get the 140 pages of free resources.
Doug Howard: Excellent. And for everyone watching go to Chris's website. It's a wealth of knowledge. Follow him on LinkedIn too, because he's tons of free videos and just powerful tips that have enlightened me too. And I'm someone that has been proactively trying to improve my communication skills for years.
We've covered communication skills and, the interpersonal aspect inside and out. We've given you some tangible tips on how to improve in these areas. If you have any questions on what we've talked about, please put them in the comments.
Be sure to tune in that our next episode together on this, because we're going to dive deep into tangible techniques for presentations.
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