{"id":8344,"date":"2025-04-03T20:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T01:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/?p=8344"},"modified":"2025-04-03T20:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T01:00:09","slug":"exaggerating-costs-you-4-reasons-to-stay-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/03\/exaggerating-costs-you-4-reasons-to-stay-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Exaggerating Costs You: 4 Reasons to Stay Real"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>As a leader you must project optimism. But when you cross the line into exaggeration or hyperbole, your leadership is facing significant risks.<\/h2>\n<p><strong>A leader in my orbit once described a very average meeting we had been in as \u201cQuite possibly our best meeting ever!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The statement was so over-the-top, and so removed from any sense of reality, that he took a serious credibility hit.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>How many of these statements, or statements like them, have you used?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h3>\u201cThat was the best (event, class, earnings quarter, meeting) we\u2019ve ever had!\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h3>\u201cThis will be the best (board retreat, youth outreach, stockholders meeting) ever!\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h3>\u201cThere is an unbelievable sense of momentum and excitement building in our (church, company, ministry, club)!\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you find that these types of hyped-up, hyperbole-filled statements are creeping into your leadership communication, watch out. Your leadership could be taking hits that you\u2019re not even aware of.<\/p>\n<h2>You can be seen as inauthentic<\/h2>\n<p>Let\u2019s face it. Not\u00a0<em>every<\/em>\u00a0event can be the \u2018best ever\u2019. If you use this kind of language excessively people will start to see you less as a leader, and more as a \u2018pitch-man\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Remember, you need to cast vision, not sell a Sham-Wow.<\/p>\n<h2>You can lose credibility<\/h2>\n<p>You know that event you described as the \u2018best ever\u2019? Well guess what. Your people were there, and they know it\u00a0<em>wasn\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0the best ever.<\/p>\n<p>When your communication creates a gap between what your people know to be true, and what you\u00a0<em>claim<\/em>\u00a0to be true, you start to lose credibility.<\/p>\n<h2>Young people start to tune out<\/h2>\n<p>Young people today have their radar on \u2018full alert\u2019 for anything that smells like hyperbole, exaggeration or hype.<\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t afford to alienate this group with you communication.<\/p>\n<h2>You create a culture of desperation<\/h2>\n<p>As a leader your words have a powerful ability to form and shape culture.<\/p>\n<p>When your communication is flavored with constant hype you are creating a culture of desperation. For your followers it\u2019s a short walk from desperation to suspicion.<\/p>\n<p>Because of my own optimistic nature, I\u2019ve learned that I need to be vigilant to ensure that hyperbole doesn\u2019t creep into my own communication.<\/p>\n<p>And I would urge you to be just as vigilant.<\/p>\n<p>Because what you lose in \u2018hype\u2019 you\u2019ll more than make up for in authenticity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a leader you must project optimism. But when you cross the line into exaggeration or hyperbole, your leadership is facing significant risks. A leader in my orbit once described a very average meeting we had been in as \u201cQuite possibly our best meeting ever!\u201d The statement was so over-the-top, and so removed from any&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7333,"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":[1033,1017,1016,7],"tags":[1116,863,1117,984],"class_list":["post-8344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-authentic","category-communication","category-integrity","category-leadership","tag-communications","tag-exaggeration","tag-hyperbole","tag-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8344","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=8344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8345,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8344\/revisions\/8345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}