Leadership and Communication Chapter 3 Summary

CHAPTER 3 USING LANGUAGE TO ACHIEVE A LEADERSHIP PURPOSE

Leaders lead and inspire others to action through their effective use of language. In The Art of Framing:Managing the Language of Leadership, Gail Firhurst and Robert Sarr argue that "leadership is a langugage game, one that many do not know they are playing. Even though most leaders spend nearly 70 percent of their time communicating, they pay relatively little attention to how they use language as a tool of influence." The in troduction in this text discussed how leaders use language as a tool of influence every day. Their ability to influence their audience positively, overcoming barriers to effective communication, is the essence of leadership communication. The goal is to helph you create a positive ethos through the effective use of language--the use of the right words in the right way to achieve the outcome you intend. You reveal your ethos through the laguage you use. As a leader, you want your audience to perceive a positive ethos in your tone, to see you as confident, and to trust and believe you.

ACHIEVING A POSITIVE ETHOS THROUGH TONE AND STYLE
To project a confident tone when you speak and when you write, you need to posses confidence 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. You want to sound confident and speak with authority. You want to be clear and crisp in your language yet not sound too harsh or brusque. The words you select and how you decide to combine them in sentences create 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.

COMMUNICATING CONCISELY
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 constructions. To achieve conciseness in your 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.
Following the ten guidelines below will help you achieve greater conciseness and a style that is more direct and forceful.
1. Avoid the Overuse of the Passive Voice--The Actor Should Usually Come First in the Sentence.
2. Avoid Expletives, Such as "There Is" or "It Is"--Watch for the "It is...That" Constrcution is Particular
3. Avoid the Use of Prepositional Idioms
4. Avoid the Overuse of Relative Pronouns--"Who, "Which", and "That"
5. Avoid the Repetition of Words and Ideas.
6. Do Not Overuse Descriptive Words, Particularly Adverbs (-ly Words)
7. Avoid Weasel Words, Ambigous Noncommital Words (e.g, almost, as much as, can bem like, things, up to, feel, look, help)
8. Be Aware of Jargon (Language Used in Particular Disciplines) and Other Kinds of Gobbledygook.
9. Avoid Nominalizations (a Jargon Word Used by Linguistists That Means Turning Verbs into Nouns by Adding-tion)
10. Avoid Redundancies

USING BUSINESS LANGUAGE CORRECTLY
A concise and confident style and an appropriate tone contribute to a positive ethos. In addition, studeies have found that the correct use of language affects ethos as well.
Correct use of language in business communication is indeed important. For a leader, it is 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. Error-prone writers might, for example, inadvertantly obligate themselves or their firms financially, compromise themselves or their firms ethically, or erode their own and their firms' credibility.

The Language Rules That Matter
The rules that govern the English anguage are numerous; however, some are more important thatn others and, according to survey findings, matter more than others in contemporary business communication. What follows is a brief overview of the roles that matter to business professionals today and a guide to traditional business grammas (as opposed to journalism or other contemporary usage). If you see yourself as very strong in standard business grammar, you could skip the short review. If you are unsure, you might want to pause before reading the next section to complete the "Usage Self-Assessment".
Surveys of executives and of memebers of the Association for the Business Communication have identified and the types of errors that business professionals find most bothersome:
1. Sentence Fragment
2. Unpunctuated Parenthetical Expression (Interrupter)
3. Run-On Sentence
4. Faulty Parallel Structure
5. Dangling Modifier
6. Apostrophe in Plural Noun
7. Comma Splice
8. Use of Reflexive Pronoun When Objective Case Is Needed
9. Use of Less for a Count Noun
10. Use of Nominative Case Pronoun in Compund Indirect Object
11. Use of Between for More Than Two
12. Adverbial Clause as Complement to Linking Verb
13. Its/It's Confusion
14. Use of Adverb "Badly" with State-of-Being Verb "Feel"
15. Mispelling of "Principle"
26. Lack of Apostrophe in Possessive Noun
17. Starting a Sentence with "But"
18. "Which" Used to Refer to Entire Preceding Clause
19. Use of Plural Pronoun to Refer to Singular Noun
20. Use of Plural Verb with Either/Or Subject Structure

The Power of Punctuation
Why does punctuation matter? It allow us to follow the complete thoughts embodied in sentences and distinguish between them. Punctuation makes reading easier and can lead to misreading if used incorrectly.
The strongerst marks of punctuation are the end marks (? !.), and the weakest are commas (,) and dashes (-). Confusion usually comes over what to do with the marks in between--the colon (:) and the semicolon (;). The colon is used to introduce lists or to signal that what follows exlains or elaborates what has come before. The semicolon is used to separate closely related independent clauses not joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, or, but, for, so, yet, not); to separate the independent clauses joined by conjunctive adverbs (accordingly, also, besieds, consequently, further, however, moreover, nevertheless, then, therefore, thus, etc.);or to separate a series of phrases or clauses containing numerous commas.

EMPLOYING EFFICIENT AND AFFECTIVE EDITING TECHNIQUES
Editing is an important skill that requires discipline and practice. It is particularly difficult to edit your own work. Many business wirters are not sure what it is that they need to watch for besides the obvious types and spelling. The advanced editing techniques shown here works well for leadership communication. Try it or develop your own method based on what you know are your particular strentgh and weaknesses. The key is to develp a method of some sort; otherwise, your editing will lack focus and may become haphazard.
The following acronym will help you remember this editing method: "Do Save Money."
D= Document (overall coherence, organization, formatting, tone)
S= Sentences (structure, clarity, conciseness)
M= Mechanics (typos, spelling, usage, diction)