What does a Strong Voice Look Like?

Who do you know who has a strong voice? Who do you know who commands attention, trust, respect, authority, just by the way they talk? And what does ‘having a strong voice’ mean?

Often when I start conversations about using a strong voice, assumptions are often made that ‘strong’ means loud to the point of forceful.  But that’s not what I mean. The President of the United States, for example, rarely raises the octaves but commands the attention of all in his presence.

Strong voices come in all forms but what they share in common is an aura that ascends the humdrum of voices around them. There are mellifluous baritone and alto voices that project assurance and calm, positive words that quietly speak to all in the room, curious enthusiasm that is infectious, passionate entreaties that can rabble rouse a crowd. And the list goes on.

We are still very much attracted to strong voices and innately critical of those that aren’t. Look at the current rise of populist politicians and you will see strong voices coming from a performative place, with the likes of Trump, Farage and rising stars Mandani and Polanski buoyed by voices very much honed on video. Meanwhile, British PM Keir Starmer is consistently criticised for having a ‘weak’ voice.

Video has elevated the voice of billions of us to new levels. Through smart phones we have become more comfortable with hearing the actual sound of our own voices on videos and voice notes. If we don’t like the sound of our own voice, then we have a myriad of tools to change it including, should we so desire, AI.

Speaking has become easier than ever. You only need to see footage from the early days of television when there was a definite playbook for how serious people should talk. Presenters, public figures, politicians would all speak using that quintessential British quirk – Received Pronunciation (RP), also referred to as The King’s/Queen’s English or BBC English.

That way of speaking filtered through to society too (notice how respondents talk in those old clips). Only in the 1980s did the BBC begin to bend the rules to allow presenters with mild regional accents but with a caveat that their speech was ‘intelligible’. By the 1990s, regional accents were finally embraced more wholly by the BBC.

In society at large culture had shifted and regional accents were often perceived to be ‘genuine’, while RP accents were seen as stuffy and snobby. The upshot is that there has never been a better time to be able to mould a strong voice in your own form!

So what makes a strong voice?

Authenticity: Own your voice. A very few people are born with a strong voice, but the rest of us need to work with what we’ve got! At the base of every strong voice is a strong sense of identity. So what is the ‘you’ that you are seeking to project? Whatever it is, let it be an authentic representation. In the words of the 19^th century playwright, Oscar Wilde – Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. 

Clarity: The best voices communicate effortlessly and are heard by all. If you know you mumble, for example, be conscious and aware enough to address it. There are several movie lines spoken by the likes of Marlon Brando and Tom Hardy that subtitles helpfully reinforce. In real life you don’t have that luxury.

Purpose: What are you using that strong voice for? Is it to stir the crowd like Henry V at Agincourt? Is it to halt a meltdown in the face of a crisis? Is it to coax a cat out of a tree?
Is it an occasion for a monologue or a haiku – something wise and substantial or something short and snappy to provoke response? Strong speakers are excellent at reading the room, the occasion and having the flexibility to be pragmatic beyond the script they may have prepared.

Practice: Assuming that you are in the camp of ‘would like a stronger voice’, my advice is to train for the occasion. Treat it like training for a sports event or honing any skill. Research the components that make for strong speech – from nuts and bolts like pronunciation, pace, rhythm, body language, eye contact – to a deeper delve into the nuances that strong speakers layer onto their words to give them leverage.

My final advice to think about your voice as your instrument and work to playing it at virtuoso level.  Explore the vast range of rich sounds it can create and explore those with exercises that can easily be found with a quick search.