He does not only speak to Blacks but he widens his audience to include everyone. He starts this speech with "five scores years ago" which is a direct reference to Abraham Lincolns most famous speech. This grabs the listener and makes them ready to hear the rest of what he will say. He states that although the Emancipation Proclamation was signed over 100 years ago to free the slaves, that Blacks are still not free. As a leader, he knows that he must captivate his audience in order to help them understand what needs to happen to allow everyone to have the basic rights that are guaranteed to everyone under the U.S. Constitution.
King also used a variety of metaphors to help people form their own images to relate to the images he was portraying. As an example, he suggested that "the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity "(King, 1964). All people can relate to this image and they understand the concept of the founding fathers creating a "promissory note" that said that all men were created equal, but that "America has given the Negro people a bad check." These images create an understanding and a deep appeal to each individual listening to the speech.
King was a very self-motivated, optimistic and persuasive person. He was able to persuade people to take action and he brought about change. These are important leadership traits. He was an attractive and effective leader form the beginning to his death. According to Patterson, Grenny, MacMillan and Al Switzler (2002) there are seven steps that can be adopted in critical conversations which are: start at heart, learn to look, make it safe, master my stories, state my path, explore others paths and move to action.
Crucial conversations are those conversations that are highly risky, take emotions, and feelings into consideration, and in which, the communicators have varying
...Download file to see next pages Read More
