The document discusses how language is an important but often overlooked leadership skill for communicating vision and strategy to a team. It emphasizes that the words leaders choose and the tone they use ensure people will listen, believe in, and want to follow them. Aristotle identified three modes of persuasion - logos, pathos and ethos - relating to logical arguments, emotional appeals, and convincing listeners of one's character. The document provides tips for leaders to simplify their language to engage workers, such as focusing on shared goals and values rather than profits, using stories to illustrate principles in action, and keeping messages simple and consistent while allowing their own emotions to surface.

1. By
David Kiger
HOW TO SPEAK YOUR
WAY INTO BECOMING A
GREAT LEADER
Image courtesy of denise carbonell at Flickr.com

2. When we talk about leadership skills, the focus is usually on the need for
strategic vision and effective leadership; but there is very little attention
to language, which is ultimately the link between vision and the ability to
powerfully communicate its essence to their team. The words you choose
and the tone in which you say them will ensure people listen, believe and
want to follow you and your dreams and strategies to achieve them. The
language you use determines your leadership style. It is the tool you use
to make decisions, resolve disputes, enact practices, measure results
and share innovation and creativity. This language, as any other
language, must be learned, practiced and refined.
"Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully
persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated. […]
Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the
speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. [...] Secondly,
persuasion may come through the hearers, when the speech stirs their
emotions. [...]Thirdly, persuasion is effected through the speech itself
when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means of the
persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question.” -Aristotle,
"Rhetoric", 350 BC
HOW TO SPEAK YOUR WAY INTO
BECOMING A GREAT LEADER

3. Aristotle named these three modes of
persuasion: Logos (the speech itself, in so far
as it proves or seems to prove, leading with an
open mind) Pathos (persuasion by means of
emotional appeal, "putting the hearer into a
certain frame of mind, leading with an open
heart), and Ethos (persuasion through
convincing listeners of one's moral character,
leading with an open will).
The first step to improve your leadership
language skills is to make your speech simple
and keep it that way by avoiding heavy and
technical business language when addressing
your team. This language will only confuse the
workers and help maintain the gap between
you and them. You need your team to get a
clear, inspiring and heartwarming message to
engage them and motivate them to help each
other to meet the goals.
HOW TO SPEAK YOUR WAY INTO
BECOMING A GREAT LEADER
Image courtesy of brett jordan at Flickr.com

4. Lillian J. LeBlanc gives us the following examples of business
phrases and words that are commonly used by top management,
how they are interpreted by employees and possible re-wording
leaders should use to get their people on board.
HOW TO SPEAK YOUR WAY INTO
BECOMING A GREAT LEADER
What
management
says:
 “Drive results”
 “Ensure
accountability”
 “Execute
flawlessly”
 “Relentless
focus”
 “Be strategic”
 “Optimize”
What employees hear:
 Work us hard, without
regard for our personal
lives
 Micromanage us with a
magnifying glass
 Mistakes aren’t
allowed
 Nothing else matters
(even if it should)
 No clue about my daily
tasks
 Some kind of change
is coming
What a great leader
would say:
 “We will
accomplish this
together”
 “I will support your
success”
 “Together, we’ll
give our very best”
 “Here’s why this is
important”
 “I’ll explain the
long-term goals”
 “We can make
things better”

5. Jay A. Conger in “Inspiring others: the language of leadership”
(McGill University), suggests the following guidelines to make
your message as leaders of a team more impactful and
powerful:
1. “Frame your organization's mission around intrinsically
appealing goals and draw upon values and beliefs that have
positive, culturally important meanings for your organization.”
Do not just focus on numbers and amounts of profitability,
revenues and return on assets. Instead of this you should
emphasis on the social contributions and honestly back them
up. It might sound easy to do, but actually people can read
through empty words if the leader is not really committed to the
company’s belief system and its values. If the leader is not
inspired, no one will be.
HOW TO SPEAK YOUR WAY INTO
BECOMING A GREAT LEADER

6. 2. “Illustrate the guiding values in action within the organization
and the marketplace by using stories”. In line with making it
simple, always try to make it real too. Stories and past experiences
will help describe the reason behind the organization’s goals and
its deeply held positive values.
3. “Remember to highlight: the significance of the mission, why it
has arisen in the first place, key antagonists, and assumptions
about why it will succeed.”
Such as Steve Jobs did in the following speech: "I felt it the first
time when I visited a school and I had like the 3rd and 4th grades
in a classroom one time, and they had a whole classroom full of
Apple Us and I spent a few hours there and 1 saw these 3rd and
4th graders growing up completely different than I grew up,
because of this machine . . . And here was this idea (the Apple
computer) taken through all these stages resulting in a classroom
full of kids growing up with some insights and fundamentally
different experiences which I thought might be very beneficial to
their lives, because of a germ of an idea a few years "
HOW TO SPEAK YOUR WAY INTO
BECOMING A GREAT LEADER

7. 4. “Keep your message simple and focused and repeat it
consistently.” Always employ analogies metaphors and true
stories to make sure the message is always present. People
need to hear it over and over again to make it part of their own
truth.
5. “Allow your own emotions to surface as you speak.” Do not be
afraid of showing your anxiety, happiness, concerns and doubts,
showing yourself as human will motivate others to help you and
follow you.
HOW TO SPEAK YOUR WAY INTO
BECOMING A GREAT LEADER