{"id":5514,"date":"2016-11-01T16:52:32","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T21:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=5514"},"modified":"2016-11-03T08:12:43","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T13:12:43","slug":"avoiding-the-language-traps-that-hurt-your-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2016\/11\/01\/avoiding-the-language-traps-that-hurt-your-image\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoiding the Language Traps that Hurt Your Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even the most authentic, humble leaders can inadvertently project arrogance by the careless use of language.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For me, this is a clear and present danger I must watch carefully.<\/p>\n

What are some of the ways that your use of language can create this problem?<\/p>\n

There are many examples, but here are a few \u201cdoozies\u201d to avoid\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll have my assistant set this up\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you\u2019re fortunate enough to have someone on your team assigned to help you coordinate administrative details, avoid referring to them as \u201cmy assistant\u201d. (And don\u2019t even think<\/em> of calling them \u201cmy secretary\u201d. That went out with manual typewriters).<\/p>\n

Without realizing it, you can be delivering a subtle message that not only are you important enough to have a \u201cp.a.\u201d, but that this person is clearly lower on the organizational pecking order.<\/p>\n

Better to simply say, \u201cMy teammate Joe will help us find a time to meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a conference I was speaking at, someone came up to me and asked\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you do any conference speaking this is an easy trap to fall into.<\/p>\n

It sounds innocent enough, but in reality it is conveying that you are sitting atop \u201cMount Wisdom\u201d, as underlings \u201ccome up to you\u201d seeking your pearls of wisdom.<\/p>\n

This was pointed out to me via a great blog post written by an author whose name escapes me. (If you happen to know who first noted this gem please pass that name along.)<\/p>\n

Better to simply say, \u201cI was once asked\u2026\u201d Leave the conference reference and the \u201csomeone came up to me\u201d out of the picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I can\u2019t meet that day. I need to be in (Beijing, Paris, Rome\u2026)\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As someone who travels for work, I need to be so very careful about \u201ccity-name dropping\u201d. When you toss in one of these exotic sounding locations in conversation it can really sound a bit uppity.<\/p>\n

Better to simply say, \u201cSorry, I\u2019m unavailable that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even, \u201cI\u2019m out of town that day\u201d is preferable.<\/p>\n

(By the way, notice that people rarely city-name drop when they\u2019re visiting non-exotic locations?)<\/p>\n

Why do I point these out? Each of these are coaching tips I have received over the years from trusted mentors, and they have helped me enormously.<\/p>\n

Check your own use of these types of phrases.<\/p>\n

Because you could be projecting hints of arrogance that just don\u2019t reflect who you really are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even the most authentic, humble leaders can inadvertently project arrogance by the careless use of language. For me, this is a clear and present danger I must watch carefully. What are some of the ways that your use of language can create this problem? There are many examples, but here are a few \u201cdoozies\u201d to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[478,7,581,583,744,11,585],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-leadership","category-self-assessment","category-staffing","category-team-2","category-temptation","category-wisdom-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5514"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5518,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5514\/revisions\/5518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}