The Language of Leadership

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In the previous podcast, I talked about the stuff of leadership communicaiton—what leaders talk about. In a very small nutshell, leaders describe a vision for the future that is personally meaningful to followers, and expresses confidence that they can reach it.

All of that is extremely important, of course, but it’s not enough. Suppose you took a group of say 30 people and divided them into two rooms, and then selected one person at random to be the “leader” in the room. You give each leader an identical document that has all the necessary talking points: the vision, the reasons it should be meaningful and important to the followers, and reasons why they should have confidence in its success.

It’s easy to imagine totally different results from the two rooms. One person could deliver a perfectly clear and articulate explanation of all those points, and fail to spark even a glimmer of engagement or excitement from listeners. The other could send people pouring out of the room looking for brick walls to run through—same message, completely different results.

The key question is, what’s the difference? Is it something intangible that you’re either born with, or not? And of course the answer that I’m going to talk about in this podcast is that it’s not something you’re born with—it’s something you do, it’s a skill you can learn, and it’s a skill that you can grow and improve.

It’s not only what you say, but it’s how you say it that also matters. In this podcast, I’m gong to share some of the evidence that proves it’s true, give you a list of verbal tools that you can use to make you sound more like a leader, and then talk about the kinds of actual words you should and should not use if you want to make a mark on someone’s mind.

How I know it’s true

Leadership charisma is one of those things that people have actually studied and figured out. What makes someone attract attention and compel belief? People have actually studied that; A lot of what I’ve talked about in previous podcasts, especially in my Max Cred series, contributes to the effect, but there’s more to it than that.

One example I’m going to use is taken from a HBR article called “Learning Charisma” by John Antonakis, Marika Fenley, and Sue Liechti.  They describe work they’ve done to identify and teach 12 charismatic leadership tactics These are both verbal and physical, although I only cover the verbal ones in this episode. They’ve taught these skills in experiments and have seen leadership competence ratings jump by about 60% on average. They also found that 65% of people trained in the CLTs received above-average leadership ratings, compared to 35% for those who didn’t receive training.

Rhetorical Devices

• Contrast
• Lists, Repetition, Rhythm
• Metaphors
• Stories

Word choice

While it’s generally best to use plain direct speech and short common words, you can occasionally choose an unexpected word or phrasing to add strength, style and spice to your speech. The key is to be smart and avoid being perceived as pretentious or too cute by half. You can do this by asking yourself if the word adds value in the form of precision, impact, vividness, or memorability.

If you do, you will find a word that clicks into place as if no other word could have fit in that spot at that time.