Laura Althoff is a long-time subject matter expert for Skye Learning, appearing primarily in project management courses such as Principles of Scrum and Project Management Team Leadership. Skye is also excited share Althoff’s experiences as a woman leader in the workplace through its forthcoming Certificate in Leadership for Women in Business.

Althoff is a change management and agile coaching consultant with over 20 years of experience leveraging capacity, supporting transformation, and enhancing organizational performance. She is the founder of Althoff Consulting and a Project Management Council Member for MindEdge Learning. She was formerly the Executive Director for Scrum, Inc., and the Director of Account Services at the Wellness Corporation. Throughout her career, Althoff has used creativity, technology, and problem-solving to build and strengthen relationships with various business partners in diverse settings.

At the core of strong leadership is the ability to communicate effectively. And while much focus is placed on verbal communication skills, it is often the nonverbal messages - sent through facial expressions, body movements, and gestures - that have a greater impact.

Understanding how to read and use body language to communicate can help women business leaders, in particular, establish their positions of authority and prevent feeling constrained by gender stereotypes. Certain nonverbal cues can come more naturally than others, but like verbal communication, nonverbal messages can be controlled by the individual.

For so many of us, speaking in front of an audience can be an anxiety-inducing experience. First come the physical symptoms: excessive perspiration, blurred vision, dry mouth, rapid heartbeat, and trembling hands and knees. Then, the mental effects--including confusion and mental blocking--make their appearance, making it difficult to focus and articulate our thoughts.

Fortunately, there are a number of effective techniques to deal with the common symptoms of anxiety and nervousness caused by giving an oral presentation.

With ongoing advancements in conferencing technology and an increasing number of organizations employing global workforces, virtual communication has become a regular part of business culture. Virtual meetings, particularly video conference calls, offer many obvious benefits, including convenience and flexibility. Even a hospital stay is no longer an excuse to miss a meeting, as long as your hospital has wifi. But video conference calls can quickly turn awkward if the participants are not taking special attention to their body language cues.

Designing a presentation is only half the battle; the next part is delivering the content to an audience. For many, this task of speaking in front of an audience—whether large or small—can be an anxiety-inducing experience.

One of the first steps in managing the fear of public speaking is understanding the signs and symptoms of speaking anxiety.

We communicate in both personal and professional settings on a daily basis, but how much of our written or verbal communication resonates with the audience on the receiving end? Strong communication skills are essential in all types of business and can help take your career to the next level. If you can communicate with clarity, tact, and honesty, your ideas will have an impact. Check out these ten tips for effective communication in our latest infographic.

With emailing and instant messaging becoming mainstream forms of business communication, being able to respond quickly to messages has become increasingly important. When under pressure, it can be easy to write before you think and make careless and regrettable errors. Check out our latest infographic which covers six tips on writing quickly.

Communication is an integral part of business. However, we often focus on how to communicate verbally and forget to address nonverbal communication skills, including listening. Learning how to be an active listener can help you impart empathy and fairness in your professional and personal relationships. Improve your active listening skills with these four tips.

Is there anything worse than sitting in the audience during a presentation, as the speaker reads word-for-word from a series of PowerPoint slides? Does he really not understand that you can read the slides for yourself? Why not just print out a set of slides for everyone in the audience and let you all continue on with your day?

Using PowerPoint slides can actually be a wonderful enhancement to your presentation, but only if you know how to use them properly. Here are some basic rules to consider in order to keep your audience engaged.

Do the words "public speaking" make you feel excited—or do they make you want to hide in a corner? For a select few, speaking in front of an audience can be a comfortable, even enjoyable, experience. But if delivering a speech or a presentation stirs up feelings of anxiety and doubt, just know that you are not alone. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld captured the prevalence of public-speaking anxiety in this famous quote:

"According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy."