Effective Leadership-Talk Does Not Include Like Um Ya Know…

You’ve started your career. You’re scoping out the workplace terrain, looking for the ladders to climb up the hierarchy. But it’s not only where you walk but, also, how you talk that will propel you upwards.

Every generation, during its adolescence, creates its own jargon, its own new phrases and ways of saying things. Its how each new generation separates itself from the older generations, creating a separate identity. These phrases and inflections creep into speech and become habits. They’re as faddish as yesterday’s hairstyles. Fads have their place, but it’s not in the workplace—where four generations come together to work cooperatively. The workplace requires you to adopt a new set of language norms that make your work group seem more alike than different. Adolescent speech habits can isolate you and deprive you of opportunities for advancement.

Here are a few phrases that can deprive you of acceptance as an adult in the workplace:

1. Like. Inserting the word “like” into your sentences when it’s not a simile is not only bad grammar, but it distracts people from your message. Use it more than once in every sentence and you’ll be tuned out.

2. You guys. Referring to every cluster of people as “you guys” offends some people—especially females from previous generations who think of “guys” as males, and who struggled for acceptance as women in the workplace. And, if you work in customer service, this is the quickest way to drive customers away and ensure you’ll receive low or no gratuities.

3. Coo-ull. This variation of Boomer use of the word “cool” labels you as someone too young to have a vocabulary of adjectives to effectively describe your employer’s products and services. You won’t be offered the best opportunities until you can describe things in qualifiable terms.

4. Ya know. This is the equivalent of sneezing in someone’s face at the end of every sentence you speak. It won’t be long before people of previous generations avoid you altogether.

5. Sing-songy inflections. Talking like a jumper on a merry go round, alternating high and low tones in your voice with every other word or syllable, makes you sound like a Dr. Seuss character—especially to bosses and co-workers of earlier generations. It’s SO anNOYing that YOU’RE unLIKEly to GET a proMOtion IF you TALK this way.

So tuck your cohort talk away if you want to be seen as a leader, rather than as a blind follower.