“I didn’t get the promotion.” Not the words I’d want to hear from him. When you’re coaching others on their communication, word choice can play a huge role in how other people perceive them. One of the areas I focus on when coaching others in communication are what I call the gray words.

Do you want to be seen as a leader? Then step into the fear. Anyone can make a decision when the answer is either black or white. That’s easy. But when everything is gray, it’s a tough call. When you have incomplete information and a decision needs to be made, it’ll be the leader that steps in to make the call.

Get out of the gray

When I’m coaching leaders or people who present to leaders, I consistently hear words that tell me they want to stay in the gray area. They’re unwilling to commit to anything or take a firm stand. So, instead of using direct communication language, they end up using hedging words and phrases. Hedging takes away from their credibility.

“ Do one thing every day that scares you. —ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

Hedging Words

These are the types of words that sound comfortable to the speaker because they allow the speaker to stay in the gray area. They don’t have to commit to anything. These softer words may feel comfortable to the speaker, but they sound weak to the audience.

Leaders are committed. They speak in absolutes. Leaders are seen as visionary because they’ve seen the future. They can see it so clearly they can describe it in detail. It’s not a probability, it’s a certainty. Here are the words I’ve been hearing recently that keep my speakers in the gray.

• Probably
• Basically
• Essentially
• kind of
• pretty much
• sort of

Instead of using these words, leaders need to speak in absolutes. Absolutes sound more confident and show leadership because they accept risk. Even when the audience knows it is gray, when they see a leader speak in an absolute, they realize the leader is accepting the risk. Each of the words above should be converted to one of the following:

• will
• is
• won’t
• is not

“ Fears are nothing more than a state of mind. —NAPOLEON HILL

Wouldn’t it be foolish to totally commit to an unknown?

I do get this question from students when I bring up eliminating gray words. The question usually comes up because either a technical person (e.g. engineer) or a salesperson doesn’t have the exact answer and feels uncomfortable committing to something that may actually be out of their control. For example…

• “How do I commit to a price estimate when my pricing team hasn’t actually spec-ed out the infrastructure costs yet?”
• “How can I commit to a deadline for getting the application on the production servers when I haven’t talked to the installation engineers yet?”

What should I say instead?

You can still commit and get out of the gray when someone tries to nail you down to an answer and you don’t know exactly what the answer is going to be.  Based on your experience, my guess is you have a general idea of the price or the installation date. Don’t ever commit to a single number because that’s a tiny target. I recommend you commit to a range. Make sure it’s a range you can land in between. Now you just increased the size of your target and you spoke with committed words.

• The monthly cost for the managed services will between $8,000 and $14,000 per month. (Based on my experience, I think it will be closer to 8,000.)
• We will have the new application loaded on the production servers between January 15th and February 4th. (Based on my past experience, I expect it to be done close to January 15th.)

“ Courage is one step ahead of fear. —COLEMAN YOUNG

If you want to sound more like a leader then commit to speaking like one. What does leadership speak sound like? It’s much more committed. Eliminate your gray words and phrases, make a commitment when you speak, step into the fear and accept the risk.

All the best,
Russ

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Russ Peterson Jr. is the co-founder and Managing Director of iSpeak, Inc. – An award-winning professional development training company. Russ is a speaker, international trainer, and published author on Professional Sales Communication and Business Communication. He delivers workshops, keynotes, and personal communication coaching services to business professionals in the US and around the world. You can connect with Russ directly through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.