Saying just enough
Sometimes leaders get caught up in language. We try to say too much! One of my favorite sections of Greenleaf's essay The Servant as Leader is on Language and Imagination:
"As a leader, one must have facility in tempting the hearer into that leap of imaginatin that connects the verbal concept to the hearer's own experience. The limitation on language, to the communicator, is that the hearer must make that leap of imagination. One of the arts of communicating is to say just enough to facilitate that leap. Many attempts to communicate are nullified by saying too much."
Greenleaf later provides a great quote we should not be quick to forget: "A commentator once observed: 'If you have something important to communicate, if you can possibly manage it - put your hand over your mouth and point.' Someday we will learn what a great handicap language is."
There is a quote from St. Francis that comes from the same school of thought. He said "At all times preach the Gospel.....and if you must, use words."
"As a leader, one must have facility in tempting the hearer into that leap of imaginatin that connects the verbal concept to the hearer's own experience. The limitation on language, to the communicator, is that the hearer must make that leap of imagination. One of the arts of communicating is to say just enough to facilitate that leap. Many attempts to communicate are nullified by saying too much."
Greenleaf later provides a great quote we should not be quick to forget: "A commentator once observed: 'If you have something important to communicate, if you can possibly manage it - put your hand over your mouth and point.' Someday we will learn what a great handicap language is."
There is a quote from St. Francis that comes from the same school of thought. He said "At all times preach the Gospel.....and if you must, use words."
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