An Ethical Speaker must have Integrity

By DiMarkco Chandler

Speaking in front of a public audience is an awesome responsibility. Public speakers who have been granted the privilege of expressing themselves before an eager audience should be honest, empathetic, and above all, they should “practice what they preach.” These three standards or ethical guidelines should never be compromised; for combined they represent the ideal standard that should be met by all public speakers.

The first principle guideline that should shepherd all public speakers and their speeches is honesty. Without honesty, the orator is nothing more then a common con artist. Furthermore, a serious look at history will show that society as well as the disingenuous speaker will always pay a heavy price for deceitfulness. Of course, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Charles Manson demonstrated how harmful speech can be in today’s social climate. Consequently, not only is it important for the speaker to adopt this critical first principle, it is equally important for society as a whole to ask for and accept nothing less than complete honesty from all public speakers in general.

Empathy is another quality that a public speaker should possess. Although many public speakers don’t demonstrate this feature, those who do can significantly enhance and strengthen their overall ethical position. In other words, empathetic speakers will always avoid offending their audience.

Though last, practicing what one preaches goes hand and hand with the first two guidelines. It is so important to live by the laws and standards that you expect others to live by. For example, the entrepreneur who has developed a weight loss program should believe in his/her product enough to use it themselves. Thus, practicing what one preaches becomes the very ethical behavior characteristic of a responsible public speaker.

There is a fundamental philosophical principle that is a result of the application of these guidelines when they are applied to public speeches and  other similar vocational exercises. This philosophy, though abstract and perhaps vague, can be simply described as integrity.

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