THE CREDIBILITY BRIEF Issue 003

The words that are eroding your authority

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THE INSIGHT

Listen carefully to how most leaders, particularly those who've spent years navigating environments where they needed to be careful, actually speak in professional settings.

"This might be wrong, but..." "I'm not an expert, however..." "Sorry to jump in — I just wanted to quickly say..." "It's probably not a big deal, but..." "Does this make sense?"

This is the language of self-erasure. And it's so habitual for so many leaders that they no longer hear themselves doing it.

The last one is worth pausing on, because it's the phrase people defend most readily. I'm just checking for understanding. But there's a meaningful difference between checking comprehension and seeking reassurance, and the room hears the difference even when you don't. Asked after a complex technical explanation, "does this make sense?" is a reasonable invitation. Asked after a clear, confident point, it softly retracts the point. The version that preserves connection without eroding authority is "what's your read on that?" It opens a genuine exchange without apologising for the idea you just put forward.

The research on this is unambiguous. Tentative language, including hedges, qualifiers, excessive apologies, and diminutives like "just" and "quickly," consistently reduces observer assessments of capability and authority, independent of the quality of the idea being expressed. The content can be excellent. The framing buries it.

What makes this particularly insidious is that it usually starts as a rational adaptation. In environments where being too direct, too confident, or too visible carried social or professional risk, softening language was protective. It kept the peace and managed the optics.

But adaptive behaviour has a shelf life. What protected you in one context becomes a liability in another, especially as the rooms get bigger and the stakes get higher. At senior levels, language that signals uncertainty isn't read as humility. It's read as a lack of conviction in your own thinking.

This isn't about becoming someone who barks opinions without listening. It's about understanding that how you frame what you say determines whether people actually hear it.

THE APPLICATION

For the next five working days, run a simple audit on your own language.

Pick one word or phrase to eliminate entirely: just, sorry to bother you, this might be a silly question, or I could be wrong, but. One only. Don't try to overhaul everything at once. That's the perfectionism trap.

Replace it with nothing. Not a substitute hedge. Silence, or the actual sentence.

Instead of "I just wanted to quickly flag..." try: "I want to flag something." Instead of "This might be wrong, but..." try: "Here's my read on this." Instead of "Sorry to jump in..." just jump in.

The discomfort you feel doing this is informative. It tells you how much of your credibility has been quietly subject to a tax you didn't consciously agree to pay.

One word. Five days. Notice what changes: how others respond, and how you feel saying things plainly.