Many of our clients fit the following profile: super smart, accomplished, ambitious, and humble. They are dedicated to their work and to maximizing their skills. They are good leaders. So why are they getting coaching?

One characteristic that comes up a lot with these brilliant folks is that their humility can actually get in the way every now and then. 90 percent of the time, it serves them, and their teams, really well. They are terrific collaborators. They don’t need to have the best idea. They’re happy to have others get the credit. People love working with them.

But then there’s that other 10 percent. This is when these leaders are talking about their work, advocating for a new project, speaking in front of the board of directors or the executive committee. Their natural humility shows up in their communication style, specifically in their vocabulary and emphasis.
Two examples: 

1. When a leader refers to “we” and “the team,” it’s unclear to the listener who did what. It can be more powerful to say “I led the team” or “I got the ball rolling and then X took the lead.” 
2. A tendency can be to underplay accomplishments in an effort not seem arrogant or “braggy.” A client said to me recently that he gives everything the same weight; the challenges, the day-to-day, and the wins are all delivered with the same inflection and pace. This makes it tough for the listener to know what’s important. 

In the first example, I recommend that instead of defaulting to talking about “the team,” give credit where it’s due, and be specific about who did what. 

In the second, choose what the peak of your report or briefing is going to be (I suggest you make the peak be a win, but that’s not always possible.) Allot the most time to this section, and slow down when you get to it. The audience reads your signals as to what’s important—if you pause, make eye contact, and use more vocal inflection and a slower pace, they understand that this is the main event.

Don’t change! We love our humble clients 🙂 But do know when it’s time to bring your light out from under the bushel.

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Sometimes I think about all of our vast array of communication behaviors as being like knobs and sliders on a control panel. 

Each one of the knobs adjusts and mediates a behavior: pausing, volume, eye contact, gestures, cadence, pace, vocabulary, etc.  We probably have some factory settings (I might even call them default settings), that, untouched, dictate how we behave in most circumstances.

Okay, so far so good. 

But what happens when we want to come across in a different way? How can we tweak the settings to reach a different outcome?

As you already know if you have read this blog for a while, the most complete way to change your behavior is to change the “why” of your communication, your intention. But even then, some of those settings don’t move. Volume and the use of pauses, for example, are two behaviors that are tough to shift.

Instead, imagine that control board. Look for the knob that controls your volume. There are numbers or marks around the outside of the dial—just mentally turn it up two clicks. We’re not going to 11 here; we just want to make a meaningful difference in how other people experience our volume. 

The takeaway here is that small adjustments to just a few behaviors can make a big impact on how other people hear your message.  

What’s on your control board? Do any of your settings deserve a second look?

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