Three things I see speakers do not so well, far too often has to do with their eye contant. All of these handicap their ability to connect with the audience. Let's take a brief tour through them, explain the problem and provide an alternative.
Firstly we have the 'overlooker'. When speaking to an audience, the 'overlooker' will focus her eyes anywhere but on the audience. More often than not, they look over the top of the audience, (hence the name), to the back wall. But the 'overlooker' can also be found to watch the left and right flanks of her audience, and when available, the space or floor of a middle aisle.
Secondly we have the 'illusionist'. These speakers manage to look within the audience, never actually looking at the eyes of the people. They give the illusion of engaging, but in reality they are looking through the space in and around the people, or at their feet, legs, torsos.
Lastly we have the 'bouncer', who does look into the eyes of the audience but rather than hold any look long enough to engage, he bounces from one set of eyes to another, at speed, continuously and often in spurts. Taking a rest from bouncing, he will become an 'illusionist' or 'overlooker', temporarily, before going back in for the bounce!
Sometimes I see speakers utilise a mix of these, though they usually gravitate to one of them. So what should we actually be doing with our eyes?
It is all about connecting with our audience. Many speakers think this is accomplished by their talk content. But as I teach in The Talking Game, this is your weakest single tool of engagement. Eye contact is part of our body language and a major single tool of connection. You want to let your audience know or at least believe, you've 'seen' them, that you are speaking directly to them as people, that you value their gaze, smile, time and nods. The keyword is transactional. We lose this when using illusion, bouncing or overlooking.
Your audience is human, and for this reason, will abide by some basic 'rules of engagement', within a socail context such as listening to a speaker. For this reason, it is important to understand these rules and abide by them if we want a positive outcome. We ackowledge people with our eyes. Blind or visually impaired people use touch and sound. It is important to be transactional in all engagement with your audience. This will mostly take place through a connection made through the eyes.
To make the point, try having a one to one, face to face conversation with someone, while never looking at their eyes, but instead, over their head, to the floor or at their feet, legs or torso. See what happens!
So the next time you stand up to speak to people, make sure you connect with individuals in your audience by holding each eye connection for a couple of seconds. This will be enough for them to feel you've 'seen' them, and now you have their engagement. Move around the room to another person and throughout your talk, add new people to connect with, especially those at the back who think you'll leave them out! This is even more important when speaking to a small group of people and much harder when the audience is large.
Will you always be looking at eyes? No. Is it okay to sometimes 'bounce', 'overlook' or 'weave'? Yes. Balance is what you want, with a heavy weighting on the side of eye contact.