Words That Move People: How Emotional Leadership Communication Drives Action

In this episode of Leadership Breakthroughs, Alex and Tom Lemanski of Chicago Executive Coaching discuss how to use emotional communication to drive action in leadership. Listeners will learn to reframe their messages to connect with their audience's values, leading to increased engagement and better results, with practical before-and-after examples.

Tom Lemanski is an executive coach and leadership advisor at Chicago Executive Coaching. If this conversation sparked something for you, visit https://chicagoexecutivecoaching.com to learn more or get in touch.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

Welcome to Leadership Breakthroughs, where executive coaches and leaders explore the mindsets and strategies that drive real growth. I'm your host, Alex, and today we're talking about something every leader does every single day: communicate, and why most of them are leaving impact on the table because of how they're doing it. I'm joined by Tom Lemanski, founder of Chicago Executive Coaching. Tom, welcome.

Speaker 0:28

Good to be here, Alex.

Speaker 1 0:29

Tom, you open this piece with a pretty direct claim that words are one of the most powerful tools a leader has, and also one of the most overlooked. What makes you say overlooked? Leaders talk constantly.

Speaker 0:41

They do, but talking and communicating aren't the same thing. Most leaders are focused on getting the information out, the deadline, the directive, the feedback, and they stop there. They think the job is done when the facts have been transmitted. It isn't. People don't move because they received information. They move because something in that information felt real or meaningful to them.

Speaker 1 1:02

So you're making a distinction between informing someone and actually getting them to act.

Speaker 1:08

Exactly. Data informs, but emotion decides. That's not a soft idea. It's how human beings are wired. Daniel Kahneman built a career proving it. If you want someone to change behavior, commit to a goal, or care about a deadline, you have to connect to something they already value. Security, pride, belonging, purpose. When you hit one of those, that's when minds shift.

Speaker 1 1:29

Let's make that concrete. You have three before and after examples in the piece. Walk me through one of them because I think that's where this actually clicks.

Speaker 1:37

The simplest one is feedback. The before version is something like: your last report had too many mistakes. Please be more careful next time. Leaders say that version every day and think they've addressed the problem. But what did the person hear? They heard criticism, they felt defensive. And be more careful tells them nothing about how to actually improve.

Speaker 1 1:58

And the after version?

Speaker 2:00

You shift it to when your reports are clear and accurate, it helps everyone on the team make better decisions faster. Let's work together to make sure the next one hits that mark. Now the person understands the real world impact of their work. They see why it matters. And instead of feeling attacked, they feel invited into solving it. Same situation, completely different result.

Speaker 1 2:22

I want to push on that a little. Because a skeptic would say, that just sounds nicer. Is this actually about choosing softer language or is something more substantive happening?

Speaker 2:31

It's not about being softer, it's about being more accurate about why something matters. The first version is a complaint. The second version is the actual reason the complaint exists. Other people on the team are affected. You're not softening the message, you're completing it. You're giving people the full picture, including the human dimension.

Speaker 1 2:50

That's a meaningful distinction. What about when the message is inherently harder to deliver? Not feedback on a report, but something like a mandatory change. You have an example of that too.

Speaker 3:01

Right. We need to switch to the new system by Friday. It's mandatory. That's how most leaders deliver change. It's accurate. It's also a wall. People hear the word mandatory and they stop listening to anything after it. The after version says, I know learning a new system takes effort, but this change will save us hours each week and reduce daily frustration. By Friday, we'll all be on the same page and less stressed. You're still telling them what has to happen. But now you've acknowledged the costs, the effort, and you've made the benefit tangible and personal.

Speaker 1 3:31

You mentioned the word effort specifically. Is that doing real work in that sentence?

Speaker 3:37

It's doing everything. I know this takes effort, is four words that tell someone you see them. Most leaders skip that completely. They're so focused on the outcome they want that they forget the person they're talking to is gonna have to do something hard. Name the hard thing first. It earns you the right to ask for it.

Speaker 1 3:54

That's interesting. So the emotional acknowledgement isn't just nice to have, it's actually what makes the ask land.

Speaker 4:02

That's exactly it. You don't have to spend five minutes on it. Four words. Acknowledge the cost, then make the benefit real. That's the whole move.

Speaker 1 4:09

The third example you use is around team goals. Specifically the kind of generic rally the troops message that leaders send before a big push. What goes wrong there?

Speaker 4:19

Let's hit our Q4 goals, team. Stay focused. I have seen that message sent a thousand different ways, and it lands with a thud every time. Because it contains nothing that connects to any person in the room. The after version reframes it. When we hit these goals, it means more stability, more growth, more opportunity for each of us. This isn't just about numbers. It's about creating something we're proud of together. Now you've tied the goal to things people actually care about: stability, growth, pride, something shared.

Speaker 1 4:50

I want to ask about something you reference in the piece, the tagline work you've done for your own site. You mentioned being inspired by a video and by the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, and then actually applying this to your own words. How does that connect to what you're teaching here?

Speaker 5:05

It's the same principle. I had a tagline that was accurate but generic. It described what I do, but it didn't connect to why someone would care. When I reworked it to speak directly to the identity and needs of my reader, the response changed immediately. I'm not going to pretend that's a dramatic story, but it was a clean, real proof point. The same ideas I coached to leaders, I had to apply to my own communication. And it worked.

Speaker 1 5:29

What I find useful about that is it's not just theory. You tested it on yourself. So when you take this into a coaching engagement, where do most leaders actually break down? Is it the feedback conversation, the change communication, something else?

Speaker 5:43

The most common failure I see is the generic rally. Leaders think inspiration is in the intensity of their delivery. They get louder, they use more exclamation points in the email, they say, I'm counting on you. None of that is a substitute for telling someone why their work is meaningful. The leaders who do this well have trained themselves to ask one question before they communicate anything important. Why does this actually matter to the person I'm talking to? Not to the company, not to the quarterly report, to that person.

Speaker 1 6:16

That's a discipline, not just a skill.

Speaker 6:18

It is. And like any discipline, you have to practice it until it's the default. Most leaders are not there yet. They're operating on habit. They communicate the way they were communicated to, which in most organizations wasn't great.

Speaker 1 6:32

Last thing I want to ask before we get to the takeaway. You mentioned in the piece that you've been collecting communication nuances for decades, and that this topic almost didn't make it into your advanced leadership communication course. It ended up on the cutting room floor before you caught it. What made you pull it back?

Speaker 6:49

I applied it myself and discovered how much it changed things. That's usually my test. If I can't demonstrate it in my own work, I'm not going to stand in front of a client and teach it. Once I saw the results, I wasn't willing to leave it out.

Speaker 1 7:02

If someone's listening to this on their commute right now and they want to try one thing before their next important conversation, what do you tell them?

Speaker 7:10

Before your next message, whether it's feedback, a change announcement, a goal setting moment, stop and ask yourself one question. Why does this actually matter to the person I'm talking to? Not what does it mean for the project? What does it mean for them? Their stability, their frustration, their sense of doing good work, their ability to be proud of something. Then find the words that say that out loud. It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be emotional. It just has to be honest about the human dimension. When you do that consistently, people stop hearing directives and start hearing someone who understands them. That's when they move.

Speaker 1 7:45

That's leadership breakthroughs. Thanks to Tom Lemanski for a conversation that makes you want to go rewrite every message sitting in your drafts folder. You can find Tom's Leadership Breakthroughs blog and coaching programs at ChicagoExecutive Coaching.com. We'll be back next week.