If your answer to any of those questions is no, you are not equipped to give a leadership talk. These questions are not meant to be stumbling blocks to your talk, but stepping-stones. If you don t know the answers, find out. Consider each trigger. Emotional needs are your tools for getting results.
Every emotion is a problem crying out for a solution.
When you understand your listeners emotional needs and can help them find solutions to their problems, you are close to developing a leadership talk. As I helped a CEO of a worldwide business develop a talk he would give to several hundred of his top executives, he told me, I feel as if I am Daniel going into the lion s den. Indeed, it was the equivalent of a lion s den. Hired from a competing firm, the CEO was a stranger to the company a company hobbled by a declining market share and flagging morale caused by the arbitrary actions of his predecessor, an isolated dictator. This is the first time most of them will hear me, the new CEO said.