Don't let anyone fool you. If you are running for public office it helps to be a good talker. The higher the office you seek the better a talker you must be.

By "good talker" I mean articulate, "expressing oneself easily in clear and effective language", as The Free Dictionary defines it. A good talker has rich content - that is, speaks to the issues substantively, insightfully and thoughtfully. Good talking means responding to issues that matter to listeners in a timely way.

By good talker I mean motivating people with solutions they find believable. By good talker I mean ensuring that one's body language speaks confidence, power and accessibility. Quite frankly, few people can become chief executive officer (CEO) of a major corporation if they are inarticulate. If this is true for a company, how much more so for a country.

Talk is not everything in leadership. Leaders have to be effective also at decision-making, problem-solving, planning, execution, conflict-resolution, negotiating, etc. However, in politics, effective speaking means a hell of a lot. After all, so much of the business is about talking, especially when you are vying for a position for which you have no track record.

All but one of the contenders seeking to be prime minister of The Bahamas have never been prime minister before. They want Bahamians to believe that they can be prime minister. Being a lawyer, gynecologist or MP or even businessman might hint at leadership ability, but says precious little about leadership ability as prime minister.

What must those seeking to lead this nation do to get the job they seek? Among other things, talk and talk a lot. They must talk to the media. They must talk to party members.

They must talk to party supporters. They must talk to party delegates. They must talk at rallies. They must talk to Bahamian voters. In all this talk listeners get a sense of what these would-be prime ministers think, care about, believe at their cores and envision.

As a general rule, we spend 70 percent of our time in life communicating - this according to research by Adler, R., Rosenfeld, L. and Proctor, R. (2001). People in leadership, like politicians, talk even more than that I would gamble; they must. If talk is critical to the job you seek, being a poor talker does not help your cause. If you are not a good talker, don't make excuses, just get better - that is, if you really want the job.

In The Bahamas, our prime ministers have been quite articulate, none more so than the late Sir Lynden Pindling. Hubert Ingraham was not as articulate as Sir Lynden, many would argue, but no one can deny that he was articulate and got better over time. Perry Christie is articulate. That cannot be denied. Whatever people think about Christie's performance as prime minister, this much is true, he had the level of effective articulation necessary to persuade voters that he was the right man for the job.

A prime minister talks, and he or she talks a lot. They talk about what they want to do; what they are doing; and what they need to do. A prime minister talks in Parliament, in Cabinet, in the country and out of the country. Everyone expects a prime minister to be a good talker, to be articulate.

Citizens can get much-needed inspiration and motivation from talks by their prime minister. They can be persuaded to support a difficult position when their prime minister makes an articulate case. They are proud when they hear their leader represent them with eloquence and clarity on foreign soil. To be a prospect for prime minister and be a poor communicator is a challenge for any such prospect. Rising above that challenge does not require defensiveness or insecurity; it requires improvement.

Anyone, any leader, can improve his or her public speaking ability enough to impress listeners. It just takes time, effort and persistence. If you are intelligent enough to become a professional at something and succeed in that profession or do well in business and then advance in politics, then you should be intelligent enough to become a better speaker.

Rising to the high office of leader of this nation requires effective public speaking. It is nonsense to think that it does not. Being effective in that office requires being a good public speaker. It is foolish to think that it does not.

The fact that anyone has to "say" that he or she is not a talker, but a doer, is itself proof of how important talking is; after all, they have to "tell" people they are doers. If doing was all there was to it, then talking about it would be entirely unnecessary.

So you want to be prime minister? Be an effective speaker, public speaker. It is useful in so many ways and will help you make huge strides in your effort to lead your party and your nation. Invest in the training necessary to achieve this skill set.

A strong democracy needs strong opposition no matter how good or bad the government is. Strong opposition needs strong leadership and strong leaders are, more often than not, good communicators even if they don't start out that way. Talk might be cheap and money might buy land, the saying goes, but in the realm of politics good talk is money and land.

o Zhivargo Laing is a Bahamian economic consultant and former Cabinet minister who represented the Marco City constituency in the House of Assembly.

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