Communication Mistakes That Quietly Expose You as “Not Leadership Material”

Key Concepts

• Executive Presence: The ability to project authority, confidence, and competence, crucial for making a positive impression on superiors.
• Undermining Phrases: Specific linguistic expressions that inadvertently diminish one's authority and credibility.
• Commitment: The act of taking responsibility for a decision and its consequences, valued by executives.
• Non-committal Language: Phrases that avoid definitive stances, signaling a lack of risk-taking and commitment.
• Preemptive Self-Disqualification: Introducing oneself as unqualified before presenting information, leading listeners to discount it.
• Confident Framing: Presenting information with assurance, which the brain associates with competence.
• Neuropsycho Loop: A framework explaining the origin of filler words, involving neurology (thought processes), psychology (self-perception), and loops (anxiety/perception interactions).
• Disfluency Tax: The perceived loss of trustworthiness and competence associated with using filler words.
• Defensive Repair: Reacting defensively to miscommunication, framing the interaction as adversarial.
• Communicator's Responsibility: The onus is on the speaker to ensure their message is clear and unambiguous.
• Thresholds: Clear decision points (go/no-go, continue/stop) that executives require for effective decision-making.
• Epistemic Language: Language that expresses personal opinion or belief, often starting with "I think," which invites debate.
• Deontic Language: Language grounded in responsibility, clear objectives, rules, and logic, which executives respond to.
• Externalized Agency: Attributing the success or failure of a task to external factors rather than personal control.
• Internalized Agency: Taking ownership of outcomes and believing in one's ability to influence them.
• Silent Audition: The concept that every meeting is an opportunity to demonstrate one's capabilities and leadership potential.

Common Expressions That Undermine Authority

This summary details seven common linguistic expressions that can negatively impact one's authority and executive presence, along with strategies to avoid them. The core argument is that while data and analysis may be sound, the delivery of a message is critical for its reception and for projecting competence.

1. "Maybe we could..."

• Description: This phrase converts a potential recommendation into a vague, non-committal suggestion. Examples include "Maybe we can push the launch and delay it" or "Maybe we can revisit our goals for Q3."
• Impact:
  • No Commitment: Executives, as decision-makers, require clear endpoints and cannot act on ambiguous suggestions.
  • Reduced Perceived Competence: Signals a lack of consideration for second-order effects or opportunity costs.
  • Low Commitment Signal: Sounds like a pre-exit clause for someone unwilling to carry risk.
  • Value of Commitment: Commitments (yes/no) are valuable and rare because they involve accepting consequences and carrying risk, making them "expensive." Non-committal language is "cheap" and does not earn respect.

2. "I'm not the expert here, but..."

• Description: This preemptive self-disqualification, such as "I'm not the finance expert, but..." or "I'm not the tech expert, but...," primes listeners to discount subsequent information.
• Impact:
  • Preemptive Self-Disqualification: Frames the speaker as a novice, leading listeners to treat them as such.
  • Dodging Accountability: Acts as a soft disclaimer in case the idea is incorrect.
  • Association with Incompetence: The human brain associates competence with confident framing. A lack of confident framing leads to assumptions about the speaker's competence as a leader or in that field.
  • Framing from Insecurity: Signals insecurity, forcing listeners into "fact-checking mode" rather than "buying-in mode."

3. Filler Words (e.g., "you know," "like")

• Description: The overuse of filler words such as "you know" and "like" in statements like "I think we should, you know, roll it out in two regions first" or "I think we should like expand our project scope."
• Impact:
  • Thinking Problem: These words indicate that the thought has not been fully processed, suggesting a lack of preparation. People do not want to watch someone think; they want to see that the thought process is complete.
  • Neuropsycho Loop Explanation:
    • Neurology: Relates to memory, recall, thought processes, and idea development within the brain. Unprocessed ideas stem from this.
    • Psychology: Encompasses self-perception, situational awareness, and emotional responses, influencing how one shows up.
    • Loops: The interplay between anxieties, judgments, and perceptions that create a cycle.
  • Cognitive Burden on Listener: Forces listeners to do extra "parsing" to understand the message, which works against the speaker, especially under time pressure.
  • Disfluency Tax: Results in a lower perception of competence and leadership, leading to a loss of trust and credibility.
  • Adolescent Level Speaking: Creates a perception of immaturity, incongruent with executive leadership status.

4. "That's not what I meant."

• Description: A defensive reaction to miscommunication, such as "Hey, that's not what I meant" or "Well, that's not what I meant."
• Impact:
  • Defensive Repair: Attempts to fix poor communication defensively, framing the interaction as "me versus you."
  • Triggers Threat Response: This phrase can trigger an amygdala response in the listener, leading to emotions and the feeling of being corrected.
  • Misconstrued Meaning: Often arises because the initial message was not conveyed clearly enough.
  • Communicator's Responsibility: The onus is on the communicator to ensure messages are clear, concise, and impossible to misunderstand.

5. "Kind of..."

• Description: Vague descriptors like "kind of" in phrases such as "Finance is kind of concerned with cashflow" or "The project went kind of smoothly."
• Impact:
  • Lack of Magnitude/Commitment: Implies the speaker doesn't know the magnitude of the situation or isn't committed to stating it precisely.
  • Erases Thresholds: Executives need clear thresholds (go/no-go, continue/stop). "Kind of" removes these, hindering decision-making.
  • Violates Senior Leadership Expectations: Senior leadership expects sufficient, orderly, and precise information.
  • Keeps Options Open: Signals a desire to keep options open, leading to a lack of ownership of outcomes.
  • Vague Input: Prevents executives from updating their mental models, making it easier for them to ignore the message.

6. "I think we should..."

• Description: Phrases like "I think we should broaden the scope of the project" or "I think we should hire two more SDRs."
• Impact:
  • Self-Centered: Centers the statement around the speaker rather than organizational logic.
  • Epistemic Language: Reads as an opinion or personal pondering rather than a reasoned, logical recommendation.
  • Absence of Reasoned Steps: Lacks evidence, inference, planned action, and risk evaluation.
  • Invites Debate, Not Dialectic: Promotes adversarial "debate" (win/lose) rather than a collaborative "dialectic" (dialogue that increases collective intelligence).
  • Incongruent with Executive Needs: Executives need deontic language (grounded in fiscal responsibility, clear objectives, rules, and logic) because too much is at stake to rely on personal ponderings.

7. "I'll try to..."

• Description: Statements like "I'll try to get the deck to you by Thursday" or "I'll try to hit the deadline by next quarter."
• Impact:
  • Non-Binding Intent: Creates doubt about whether the task will be completed or prioritized.
  • Externalized Agency: Implies that external factors (budget loss, economic changes, restructuring) might prevent completion, rather than taking personal responsibility.
  • Perceived as Optic Optimization: Senior leadership perceives this as an attempt to optimize optics rather than taking ownership of organizational outcomes.
  • Executive Preference for Internalized Agency: Executives sponsor individuals who take ownership and internalize agency.

Conclusion

The seven common expressions discussed—"Maybe we could," "I'm not the expert here, but," filler words, "That's not what I meant," "Kind of," "I think we should," and "I'll try to"—all shift the cognitive burden onto the listener. They force the listener to infer meaning, assess commitment, and reassure themselves of the speaker's team player status. Ultimately, these phrases can convey a lack of capability, competence, or trustworthiness. Every meeting is a "silent audition," and the careful selection of language is crucial for projecting leadership and making the right impression. The speaker emphasizes pairing this knowledge with other phrases that signal a lack of executive readiness, as discussed in a previous video.