Own Your Words to Gain Authority

Managers undermine their credibility when they speak for others too frequently.

-  David Hollis and Alex Wright

How often do you find yourself voicing someone else’s ideas, thoughts, or demands at work? Whether you are conveying your CEO’s wishes to a colleague or explaining to your team that “sales needs an update,” speaking for others — what researchers call managerial ventriloquism — is a common practice in organizations. It can be valuable, and even essential, to fulfilling the role of a manager. But when done badly, it can harm managers’ credibility, damage company culture, and hurt their organizations’ reputation and profits.

The practice of invoking distant interests by making statements like “The CEO needs this by the close of play” or “The board needs answers immediately” is commonplace and natural. But when managers rely on this approach to excess, it is usually an indicator of one of two issues in the organization: Either managers possess too little autonomy and are compelled to speak the words of others (typically, the organization’s leaders), or, as is the case in most organizations, the habit of ventriloquism has become so ingrained that managers act as others’ mouthpieces without giving the practice much thought. So by routinely saying “The CEO needs …,” for instance, a manager can create the perception, both in their own mind and among colleagues, that they lack authority. Over time, speaking for others in this way engenders a managerial culture where responsibility is forever being passed on to someone else, with no one willing to take ownership of decisions.