This is the second in a series of Blogs about the need for our Leaders to be capable of confidently presenting to audiences - of all sizes.

In addition to the basics of observing experienced presenters, exercising your voice and knowing your intent and, I've identified three techniques to assist your presentation skills development.

Use Questions to understand, adapt & engage - a good presentation, whether it be with one person, a team meeting or a town hall session, involves the use of questions - it's critical to get 'into' your audience's head, heart & gut. During your presentation, artfully pose questions to consider or specifically ask individuals for information.

Audiences are predictable - know who's in the room and consider how they will behave and what detail they require. Additionally, I categorize audiences into three groups: People concerned - they want to know how what you are saying will affect/benefit others, Performance concerned - they want high level information, love a new challenge and want to know how it will grow their reputation. And you have those concerned about process - how things work, the detail and how what you're talking about 'fits in' with what is current.

Visuals are useful for many audience members. Whilst we all cringe when we see the projector in use aka death by power-point, people do appreciate well configured visuals which highlight the point you are making. This all relates to peoples' learning channels. More on that in another blog.

When you're attending a 'presentation' today, audit their use of questions & visuals and their ability to gauge your concern and interest in what you are saying.

I'm creating a presentation skills program for a client and in my research I discovered that the new fear in response to "what am I afraid of' is 'Failure'. One word sums it up.

I've been involved with Presentations for 30 years (Oh Lord, am I that experienced!) and I continue to experience the fear of failure and I still practise my presentations and continue to learn how to keep the F Bomb at a distance.

The F Bomb is part of our everyday life: wake up, have a coffee, miss your train (failure), arrive at work, forgotten your security tag (failure), call your boss and ask to arrange access which turns into a great discussion about your project concept (excitement), go out to lunch with a friend (pleasure), two hours of uninterrupted work (success), forget partner's birthday gift (big failure)! Yet, when it comes to making presentations, the bomb is almost debilitating.

Making a presentation can be made complex and on the other hand, can be rather simple if you apply the regular tips and practise the techniques which you've learnt, seen others competently apply and are written about. However, failure has such a big ego: it takes over your mental state, notes aren't readable, colleagues let alone the audience you want to interact appear as the enemy - in actual fact, you are your worst enemy!

For me, I've learnt most when I've failed. Don't get me wrong, warm gushing positive feedback is amazing to receive and boosts your confidence; it's the gut wrenching feeling when your technology doesn't work, pronouncing names incorrectly, faced with questions which you can't answer, observing people on their devices and yes, I've had someone fall asleep. All these examples aren't that bad, they aren't life threatening - it's the anxiety and stress we experience that kills our confidence.

The F Bomb can and should be detonated - be in control and don't wait for it to explode.