Just looking at role models can make you a better public speaker.
A study has found that having a picture of a female leader in the room can help improve women’s public speaking, and performance as leaders.
The study had men and women subjects give a speech to a virtual reality audience, with pictures of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, or Angela Merkel on the virtual wall in the room.
When the pictures of Hillary or Merkel were on the virtual wall, the women subjects gave longer speeches that were ranked better by participants who were told to view the speeches and rate the speaker’s performance.
When there was no picture, or a picture of Bill Clinton, the men gave longer speeches than the women.
The authors of the study wrote: “We believe these findings are important because although a wealth of research has studied the effects of role models on academic and math performance, there is no research that investigates the effect of female political role models on successful leadership behavior.”
Other studies show that having powerful female leaders can make women feel inferior when it comes to their own leadership qualities.
