Your words matter as a Leader
May 24, 2022
Language is one of the most powerful tools that we humans use to connect, communicate and grow. Leaders persuade people to do great things in uncertain contexts, using only one tool: your words. As Aristotle explained 3 main traits of leadership language are Ethos, Pathos, Logos.
Bring logic, emotions, and authenticity to your communication to be an influential leader.
In my view, these are not only the traits of great leaders but of anyone who wants to create an influence and be an inspiring leader.
1. Ethos
Credibility, Authority, Trustworthy
- Build a communication that creates a persona of a leader being trustworthy, knowledgeable, and well-meaning. Acknowledge achievements and have a non-judgmental conversation. People need to know leader has deep values and dreams, and they need to hear the leader.
- Credibility and authentic language come from the heart and true stories like – “As I kid, I use to try new things all the time that, some worked, and some did not but I learned new things every time. That’s what we want in an organization for innovation and creativity, try new things”
2. Pathos
Emotions, Empathy, Care
- It’s also important to tell stories about your own lessons in empathy. Do you know your team at a deeper level, do you know what is their passion, their hobbies, what are the hidden talent of the team? Do you stop by your team and talk, do you know what’s going in at a higher level in their lives, what keeps them going?
- “I have been bullied as a child and I know what it feels like. This is what we are not going to tolerate at any cost in our organization.”
- “I have family, just like yours and I know how if feels like when you you’re your child’s football match, we are committed to providing complete work-life balance in the company.”
3. Logos
Logic, Agility, Data-driven
- Provide evidence in the form of facts, figures, and statistics for teams to accept it logically.
- “Based on the feedback received from our teams, 82% said that mental health is one of the most important things they are looking for and we have decided to consider it in the upcoming board meeting”.
- “We started a few projects last year based on expected benefits however they were not as promising as they appeared to be when we started, so we have decided to drop them off.”
People are the most important assets, and your words can inspire them to do their best for themselves and for the organization.
Your words and stories matter as a leader, choose them to influence and inspire teams. Bring logic, emotions, and authenticity to your communication to be an influential leader.
Thank you for reading the article, please share how you use Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in your communication.
– Neetu Choudhary
