ABSTRACT
The ability to make an emotional connection with the audience is an essential leadership skill. Emrich and colleagues (2001) find that the use of emotion-evoking images in US presidents’ speeches is directly related to the public’s perception of each president’s charisma and greatness. Indeed, the hallmark of truly great speeches and the leaders who deliver them is their ability to stir the audience’s emotions. However, many professionals over-estimate their ability to elicit the emotions they intend. Kruger and colleagues (2005) find that audiences reading e-mails have great difficulty discerning the emotions most e-mail writers intend to convey. For example, audiences are likely to interpret e-mail messages intended to be funny as being sarcastic and insulting instead.
