USING LANGUAGE TO ACHIEVE A LEADERSHIP PURPOSE
Language is a form of communication both in sound and in words.However; leadership is a language game, one that many do not know they are playing. Even though most leaders spend nearly 70% of their time communicating, they pay relatively little attention to how they use language as a tool of influence1.To project a confident tone when you speak and write, you need to posses confident not only in your knowledge on the subject but also in your ability to capture the content in the right words used in the right way. The words you select and how you decide to combine them in sentences create your style; your audience perceives that your style as your tone, and through that tone, they make assumptions about your ethos. The tone, or what your readers perceive as your attitude toward them or toward the subject, influences the success of your message to such a great extent that you must always be aware of its impact.
One way to make your writing clear is to make it concise. Clear writing is direct to the point, and free of jargon, pomposity, and wordy construction. To achieve conciseness in writing, you may need to break old habits of wordiness that you do not even realize you have. Writing concisely requires practice and a critical eye for your own style. To help make writing more concise, some guidelines may be useful; these guidelines only demonstrate what is usually preferred when communicating as a leader. Following the ten guidelines below will help in achieving greater conciseness and style that is more direct and forceful.
1. Avoid the overuse of the passive voice.
2. Avoid expletives.
3. Avoid the use of prepositional idioms.
4. Avoid the overuse of relative pronouns.
5. Avoid the repetition of words and ideas.
6. Do not overuse descriptive words, particularly adverbs
7. Avoid weaselwords, ambiguous noncommittal words.
8. Be aware of jargon and other kinds of gobbledygook.
9. Avoid nominalizations.
10. Lastly, avoid redundancies.
USING BUSINESS LANGUAGE CORRECTLY
A concise and confident style and an appropriate tone contribute to a positive ethos. In addition, studies have found that the correct use of language affect ethos as well; Benson (2001) writes that “Errors [grammatical] create misunderstandings of the text’s meaning, and they harm the image of the writing (and possibly the organization to which the writer belong...) Error affect a person’s credibility as a writer or employee2”.Businesses audiences are surprisingly adept at detecting errors in writing or speaking, and their judgement can be harsh and unforgiving.
Correct use of language in business communication is indeed important. For a leader, it’s crucial. Your credibility as a leader, your ability to represent yourself, and your company, and your ethos all depend on using language carefully. Careless errors are potentially damaging to a company .Usage errors in business message can cause misreading{s} that carry a high price..Error-prone writers might for example, inadvertently obligated themselves or their firm financially; compromise themselves or their firm ethically, or erode their own and their firms’ credibility3.
Endnotes
1.Fairhust,G.,Sarr,R.(1996).
2.Beason,B.(2001).
3.Leonard.D,.and Gilsdorf,.2001.
Language is a form of communication both in sound and in words.However; leadership is a language game, one that many do not know they are playing. Even though most leaders spend nearly 70% of their time communicating, they pay relatively little attention to how they use language as a tool of influence1.To project a confident tone when you speak and write, you need to posses confident not only in your knowledge on the subject but also in your ability to capture the content in the right words used in the right way. The words you select and how you decide to combine them in sentences create your style; your audience perceives that your style as your tone, and through that tone, they make assumptions about your ethos. The tone, or what your readers perceive as your attitude toward them or toward the subject, influences the success of your message to such a great extent that you must always be aware of its impact.
One way to make your writing clear is to make it concise. Clear writing is direct to the point, and free of jargon, pomposity, and wordy construction. To achieve conciseness in writing, you may need to break old habits of wordiness that you do not even realize you have. Writing concisely requires practice and a critical eye for your own style. To help make writing more concise, some guidelines may be useful; these guidelines only demonstrate what is usually preferred when communicating as a leader. Following the ten guidelines below will help in achieving greater conciseness and style that is more direct and forceful.
1. Avoid the overuse of the passive voice.
2. Avoid expletives.
3. Avoid the use of prepositional idioms.
4. Avoid the overuse of relative pronouns.
5. Avoid the repetition of words and ideas.
6. Do not overuse descriptive words, particularly adverbs
7. Avoid weaselwords, ambiguous noncommittal words.
8. Be aware of jargon and other kinds of gobbledygook.
9. Avoid nominalizations.
10. Lastly, avoid redundancies.
USING BUSINESS LANGUAGE CORRECTLY
A concise and confident style and an appropriate tone contribute to a positive ethos. In addition, studies have found that the correct use of language affect ethos as well; Benson (2001) writes that “Errors [grammatical] create misunderstandings of the text’s meaning, and they harm the image of the writing (and possibly the organization to which the writer belong...) Error affect a person’s credibility as a writer or employee2”.Businesses audiences are surprisingly adept at detecting errors in writing or speaking, and their judgement can be harsh and unforgiving.
Correct use of language in business communication is indeed important. For a leader, it’s crucial. Your credibility as a leader, your ability to represent yourself, and your company, and your ethos all depend on using language carefully. Careless errors are potentially damaging to a company .Usage errors in business message can cause misreading{s} that carry a high price..Error-prone writers might for example, inadvertently obligated themselves or their firm financially; compromise themselves or their firm ethically, or erode their own and their firms’ credibility3.
Endnotes
1.Fairhust,G.,Sarr,R.(1996).
2.Beason,B.(2001).
3.Leonard.D,.and Gilsdorf,.2001.
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