Eye Contact and the Art of Speaking

When we talk about the art of speaking, eye contact is one of the things which are considered important. Being an effective speaker is good for you due to the multiple benefits associated with it. If you are an effective speaker, then it’ll help you not only in SSB, but also in many aspects in life. A good orator has an easy way to convince people.

If you have the power of communicating what you feel, then nothing is better than that as then people get to know what your thoughts are in a much simpler way. In SSB there are many places when your, being a good speaker will help you. To begin with it helps you to give a connect with your group mates. Its helps you throughout in the Group Tasks and in the personal interview. Let us see specifically how eye contact helps you.

Why Eye contact is important?

When you talk, while looking directly into the eyes of a person, it shows that you are very confident about what you are speaking. When you speak in the Group Discussions, while looking into the eyes of your group mates, they have no choice to look at you and listen.

This will show that you are a good leader, and it’ll be difficult for your group members to cut you in-between. If you have an eye contact while doing the lecturette, it’ll again give you confidence. It’ll show that you are well prepared to speak and will remove your hesitation.

While having a conversation with the interviewing officer, if you have eye contact with him, it’ll again depict that you are confident. They generally tend to look into the eyes of the candidate while asking questions; some candidates get afraid from this and are hesitant to speak.

The IO looks into your eye just to force you speak the truth. If you are ready for the eye contact and look back in his eyes and speak, it’ll be a win-win situation for you. Many tend to forget what they were speaking, when the IO looks them into the eye.

How to develop it?

Eye contact is something you can develop with practice. Start now, look into the eyes of person you are talking to. In the GD look at the person you are speaking with. Don’t look at somebody for too long, keep shifting from one person to the other in random order or in clockwise/anticlockwise direction.

While in the interview, it might be a little difficult for you to look in the eye of the Interviewing officer, not because he looks tough or anything but just because you are already too scared. In that case try looking at his face, if not eyes. Slowly move towards eyes.

The most tough part is to look in the eyes of the group mates, in lecturette (yes some of them make funny faces, show their teeth, and the GTO is sitting behind so they have advantage). Divide the room/area into four parts, look in each block one after the other, this way you don’t have to look directly into the eyes also and the purpose will be solved.

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