People decide how important you are by the words you use

There is a moment I watch for in every first session. The executive in front of me is smart, prepared, often the most knowledgeable person in their company on their subject. And then they start talking: "Sorry, this might be a silly question..." "I kind of think we should..." "Does that make sense?" In thirty seconds, without noticing, they have told the room three times not to take them too seriously.

Most of them have no idea they do it. These phrases are habits, picked up years ago and polished by repetition. They feel polite, careful, even humble. What they actually do is hand your authority away, one word at a time.

The words you use are a status signal. The research is not subtle.

This is one of the best-studied ideas in communication research. In 1978, a team led by Bonnie Erickson published a now-classic study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. They had people listen to the same witness testimony delivered in two styles: one direct and confident, the other full of hedges, hesitations and disclaimers - what linguists call "powerless speech". Same facts, same person. The listeners rated the powerless-style speaker as significantly less competent, less credible and less convincing.

A decade later, Lawrence Hosman isolated the individual ingredients. His 1989 study found that hedges and hesitations each, on their own, lowered how authoritative the speaker was judged to be. You don't need the full package of weak language to lose the room. One habit is enough.

And this is not only an academic point. Matt Abrahams, who teaches communication at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, tells executives to cut hedging phrases like "I think", "sort of", "kind of" and "it seems", and to replace them with declarative statements. "I kind of think we should do this" and "We should do this" are the same opinion. Only one of them sounds like it belongs to a leader.

10 phrases to drop, and what to say instead

Here are the 10 phrases I tell my clients to drop, ranked by how much damage each one does.

1. × Not to say: "Sorry to interrupt..." / "Sorry, quick question..."

   → Say instead: "One point before we move on."

   You are not interrupting. You are in the meeting because your voice is needed. Or simply ask the question.

2. × Not to say: "I just wanted to..."

   → Say instead: "I wanted to flag something."

   "Just" shrinks whatever comes next. Better still: state the thing.

3. × Not to say: "I think..." / "I feel like..."

   → Say instead: "My recommendation is..."

   When you actually know, say it like you know. "The numbers say..." works too. Save "I think" for genuine guesses.

4. × Not to say: "Does that make sense?"

   → Say instead: "What questions do you have?"

   It sounds like you doubt your own explanation, and it invites the room to doubt it too. "What would you like me to expand on?" works too. Same courtesy, opposite signal.

5. × Not to say: "This might be a stupid question, but..." / "I'm no expert, but..."

   → Say instead: Nothing - just ask the question.

   You have just instructed everyone to discount what follows. If it is genuinely basic, it is usually the question everyone else was afraid to ask.

6. × Not to say: "kind of" / "sort of"

   → Say instead: "It works."

   These rarely add meaning - they only add doubt. Delete them. "It sort of works" becomes "It works" or, if that is not true, "It works for small teams; it breaks at scale."

7. × Not to say: "I'll try to..."

   → Say instead: "I will."

   "Try" pre-loads failure. If you honestly can't commit, commit to what is real: "I can deliver it by Thursday" or "That one is not realistic this week; here is what is."

8. × Not to say: "I'll just follow up..." / "Just checking in..."

   → Say instead: "I'm following up on the proposal. Where does it stand on your side?"

   Direct is not rude. Vague is forgettable.

9. × Not to say: Tag questions: "...right?" / "...you know?"

   → Say instead: Make the statement, then pause.

   They beg for agreement instead of earning it. Silence after a clear point reads as confidence.

10. × Not to say: "To be honest with you..."

    → Say instead: Nothing - delete it.

    It implies the rest of your sentences were not honest.

The word your listener actually hears

This one comes from my NLP work, and once you hear it, you will notice it everywhere.

If someone asks you "how are you?" and you answer "not bad", what stays with them is "bad". The listener's mind keeps the word and drops the negation around it. So I ask my clients for the positive word instead. Not "not bad" - "good". Not "no problem" - "my pleasure". Not "don't hesitate to call me" - "call me anytime". Same meaning, but a completely different word stays in the listener's mind.

The same thing happens at the start of a speech. A client of mine opened a presentation with: "This is difficult to understand, I'll try to explain." I stopped them right there. Before they had explained anything, they had already told the room to expect difficulty, and promised only to try. I told them: you don't need to say that. Start with the benefit. Say: "I'll explain this so it's easy to follow." Now the room is waiting for easy instead of difficult.

Watch your own opening lines for the same habit. "This is a bit complicated..." becomes "Here is how it works." "Bear with me..." becomes nothing at all - just start, and start with the benefit. Whatever you announce in your first sentence is what the room prepares for.

This is the same principle behind my method, Confident Presence. Your words set the emotional state of the room. Every sentence is a suggestion to the listener. Suggest the state you want them in.

When the rules bend

None of this means becoming blunt or cold. A few honest exceptions.

A quick word about humor, because this one is different. Phrases like "Does that make sense?" are sometimes used on purpose, to lift the energy in the room with a light, funny comment. Even an apology can work as slight humor. There is a big difference between being funny and being highly apologetic. If you are comfortable up there and you have fluid control of the room, a few of these phrases can lighten the mood. Just not too much of it - it turns tacky, and then it works against you.

A real apology is a strength, not a weakness. If you missed a deadline, gave wrong numbers or let someone down, apologize properly. Research by Lewicki, Polin and Lount (2016) found that effective apologies have specific components - acknowledging responsibility, expressing regret, offering repair - and that fuller apologies rebuild more trust. What weakens you is the reflex apology for things that are not offenses: existing, speaking, asking, disagreeing.

Real uncertainty deserves honest words. If you don't know, don't fake certainty with bravado - and don't bury it in hedges either. "I don't have that number confirmed yet; I'll send it to you by tomorrow noon" is more authoritative than either pretending or mumbling "I think maybe it's around..." Saying clearly what you know, and what you don't, builds more trust than pretending.

Courtesy is not self-diminishment - and the Gulf knows the difference. Many of my clients work in the Gulf, where warmth, respect and gracious phrasing are part of professional life. Keep all of that. "Thank you for your time, I value this discussion" is courtesy. "Sorry to take your time, I know you're busy, this will only take a minute" is self-diminishment dressed as courtesy. The most respected people in those rooms are warm and direct at the same time.

And if you speak English as a second or third language: you have an advantage here, not a handicap. Hedging phrases are mostly borrowed crutches - they are how non-native speakers buy time. Direct sentences are actually simpler English. Shorter, cleaner, easier to say under pressure. Cutting "I think maybe we could possibly..." does not require better English. It requires less.

One more thing, and I say this carefully. Research by Schumann and Ross (2010) found that people who apologize more often are not weaker - they simply have a lower threshold for what counts as an offense. That threshold can be trained. Notice what you are actually apologizing for. Most of it was never an offense.

Why you keep doing it anyway

Here is the part the listicles skip. You already knew most of this list. You have read it before, nodded, and walked into your next meeting saying "Sorry, just a quick one" anyway.

That is because these phrases are not a knowledge problem. They are a safety habit. Somewhere along the way - an old boss who punished directness, a presentation that went badly, a room where you felt out of place - your nervous system learned that making yourself smaller was safer. Now it runs on its own, and it gets loudest exactly where you can least afford it: in front of boards, investors and senior clients.

This is why, in my method - Confident Presence - we work on the layer underneath the words. Using techniques from NLP and hypnotherapy, we find the specific trigger that switches the habit on, and we change how your body responds to it. Once the fear underneath quiets down, the direct words come out on their own. You stop performing confidence and start simply not being afraid.

A one-day drill to start tomorrow

You don't need a session to begin. Try this for one working day:

1. Write your two most-used reflex phrases on a sticky note. Put it where you can see it during calls. ("Just" and "sorry" are the usual suspects.)
2. In every meeting and every email, catch them before they leave. When you catch one, say the sentence again, clean, even mid-flow. Out loud is fine. It feels strange for about three sentences.
3. Script tomorrow's first sentence tonight. Whatever your first meeting is, write your opening line as a plain declarative statement and rehearse it twice. Openings are where the habit is strongest.
4. Count, don't judge. At the end of the day, tally how many times you caught yourself. The number doesn't matter. The catching is the training. Within a week, the catching moves earlier - from after the phrase, to mid-phrase, to before it.

How this works in the sessions

When a client brings me this habit, we start with a recording. Most people have never heard themselves, and the first listen is worth more than any list of tips - you can't change a habit you can't hear.

From there the work has the same three layers it always has. First the emotional side - Confident Presence: finding and defusing the trigger that makes small feel safe, using NLP and hypnotherapy techniques. Then delivery: where the reflex phrases cluster, what your voice does around them, how to pause instead of hedging. Then content: restructuring your key points so the confident version is also the natural version, not a performance you have to remember under pressure.

If you recognized yourself in more than two items on that list, that is normal - and fixable. This is some of the most satisfying work I do, because you hear the change in yourself quickly, and usually the people around you notice it before you do. If you want a hand with it: let's talk, book your call. Thirty minutes, and you leave knowing exactly what we would work on together.

Frequently asked questions

Also read: How to stop your voice shaking in a board presentation →

Also read: How to stop saying um and uh when you present →

Elio Haddad

Communication Mentor and sculptor based in Lebanon. Working in communication and NLP since 2012. Works in English, Arabic and Brazilian Portuguese.

More about Elio →