Good communicators
Good communicators use three primary tools to aid in communication: purpose, persona, and presence. Good communicators become high voltage communicators, however, when a fourth P is added to the mix. With personhood, speakers are self-aware, confident, and credible; without it, they lack authenticity and the ability to earn trust.
Purpose transforms careers into callings, ignites passion, and empowers the way in which we speak. Persona describes the masks we wear, or images we assume, in order to facilitate communication. In business, it is the way we brand ourselves professionally, or create our professional image.
Finally, presence is the way in which we carry ourselves, and it determines in large part our ability to convey likeability, credibility, and authority, the three hallmarks of powerful communicators.
Picture personhood, purpose, persona, and presence as the four points of a cross contained in a circle. Personhood is at the bottom of the cross and serves as the foundation of the model; purpose is at the top, where with personhood it creates a stabilizing vertical axis. This vertical line represents work we must do internally. Looking at the horizontal axis, we find persona at the far left and presence on the far right.
Personhood, purpose, persona, and presence are at play every time we communicate, although most of us are unaware of it. But when we become aware of the four Ps, we can harness their power to become the powerful communicators we were born to be.