Language isn’t a soft skill. It’s a mechanism to inspire. Here’s how people leaders can increase their influence with small shifts in their vocabulary.

The right words, used with precision, can quietly shift the balance of power in any room. Whether persuading a board, guiding a team through change or shaping culture from the top, language is one of a leader’s most underrated tools.

Subtle differences in phrasing can significantly alter how messages are received and acted upon – a reminder that influence is not just about what you know, but how you communicate it.

For instance, people are about a third more likely to act on a suggestion prefaced with “I recommend” rather than “I like” because “I recommend” signals expertise and accountability, and frames the speaker as someone with both knowledge and skin in the game.

Similarly, candidates who use more prepositions in their cover letters – words like ‘for’, ‘with’ and ‘to’ that link ideas together – are 24 per cent more likely to get the job. Their language shows greater cognitive empathy, signalling an ability to connect people, ideas and outcomes.

Even the tone CEOs adopt in earnings calls can move markets. When their language conveys confidence and certainty, investors interpret it as a reflection of strong leadership and strategic clarity. When it wavers, so too does market trust.

Understanding the psychology of language isn’t just about enabling more effective communication; it’s a tool for earning credibility and influence.

The science of influential language

As a marketing professor at the Wharton School, the business school at the University of Pennsylvania, I think about the science of language all the time. More data is available than ever before, from the emails we write, to the content we post online. Even transcribing a conversation with a client or colleague can give us easy access to language data.

AI can help parse this data in exciting and insightful new ways, allowing us to unlock understandings about language that we never had before.

For example, in one experiment, scientists used automated text analysis to look at five years of data, and more than 10 million emails sent between hundreds of employees of a mid-sized firm. Rather than focus on what employees talked about, the researchers zeroed in on employees’ linguistic styles.

They found that similarity predicted success. Employees whose linguistic style was more similar to their coworkers’ were three times more likely to be promoted, and received better performance evaluations and higher bonuses.

“Saying ‘I recommend’ versus ‘I like’ something makes people about a third more likely to take your suggestion.” – Professor Jonah Berger, marketing professor, Wharton School

My point isn’t that all employees should sound the same, or that you should start forensically analysing emails to see who’s likely to thrive. It’s that a strong workplace culture often includes a shared, understood language, and that mirroring language can help get people on side.

In an HR context, that might look like echoing the language of a manager when having a feedback conversation with them. If they often speak of “capabilities” or “impact”, using those words when framing your feedback could make them more receptive to your message.

Read AHRI’s article ‘How to use data to make your presentations more impactful’.

Power of identity

In my latest book, Magic Words, I talk about how we can use language to increase our impact and better understand customers, clients and colleagues.

In writing this book, I’ve looked at tens of thousands of online content pieces to understand what holds attention, and analysed thousands of conversations to see what increases customer satisfaction and builds relationships.

Take something as simple as getting others on board. A few decades ago, scientists from Stanford University studied how language might shape persuasion. They went to a preschool and asked four and five-year-olds to help clean up the classroom. For some of them, they asked the standard question: “Can you help clean up?” But for the other kids, they phrased it slightly different: “Can you be a helper?”

The difference between ‘help’ and ‘helper’ is only two letters, yet those two letters led to a 30 per cent increase in students helping to clean up.

You might think: Well, those are children. Would this work with adults with real consequential behaviours? Other researchers looked at language and influence in the context of getting adults
to vote. They sent a message to one group asking them to vote. For the other, they asked them to “be a voter”.

Asking people to be a voter led to a 15 per cent increase in people’s likelihood of turning out to vote. The reason why has to do with the difference between actions and identities.

We all know we should engage in certain actions: vote, exercise, eat healthy, etc. But we don’t always have the time. What people do care about though is holding desired identities. We want to see ourselves as good human beings. Capable, competent and knowledgeable.

Influential language is a key part of overcoming stakeholder resistance. Learn other key skills with this AHRI short course.

Consequently, we engage in actions that allow us to see ourselves that way. If we want to seem informed, for example, we might read the news.

Framing desired actions as opportunities to claim desired identities can make people more likely to take those actions. Sure, voting is important, but if that action becomes an opportunity to claim a desired identity (i.e. be a voter), people will be more likely to do it.

Want people to support you? Ask them to be a supporter. Want them to lead? Ask them to be a leader. Want them to work harder? Encourage them to be a top performer.

4 tips to enhance your language

1. Ditch the filler words

When people speak, they often use words like ‘er,’ ‘uh,’ or ‘um’. While we usually use these filler words to give ourselves time to think, they can undermine our impact and can make it seem like we don’t know what we’re talking about, or aren’t very confident about what we’re saying.

So ditch the fillers, and replace them with pauses. Great speakers often strategically pause. Not only does it give them time to think, but it conveys confidence to the listener and is a nice way to draw the audience in and encourage them to pay attention.

2. Coulds, not shoulds

Want a team to come up with a creative solution to a tough problem? Rather than asking what we should do, ask what we could do instead. This widens our perspective, encourages us to take in a broader range of inputs, and eventually come up with better solutions.

Asking for advice rather than feedback also tends to be more effective. It shows that, rather than being dogmatic, we’re open to and actively soliciting others’ views or participation in the process. It also makes the people we ask for advice feel valued, which can make them like us more.

3. Make it concrete

We all know that listening is an important skill, but it’s not just about doing the listening. It’s also about showing that we’ve listened.

Imagine that someone asks you for help balancing their report deadline with employee onboarding. In one scenario you respond, “I’ll see what I can do.” In another, you say, “OK. I understand the report has a tight deadline. Let me see if we can extend it. Alternatively, we can find someone else to handle the new hire training.”

If you had to pick one, which manager would you say did a better job of listening?

4. Add ‘because’

In the 1970s, researchers from Harvard University approached people using a copy machine in the library at the City University of New York and asked them for a favour. Adding the word ‘because’ boosted the number of people who let the researcher skip the line by over 50 per cent – even if they provided a meaningless reason (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I have to make copies?”).

Why? Because people are often more likely to agree to something if someone has reasons. They’re so used to associating ‘because’ with valid reasons that they may say yes, regardless of the given reason.

Shaping your world

By using intentional language, we can spark interest in any topic, no matter how complex it might seem. Every leader is, at their core, a communicator. You may not take the stage like a politician, but you command rooms, guide conversations and shape understanding every day.

Powerful communication isn’t an innate gift. It’s a skill that can be learned, refined and applied with intention.

When HR practitioners speak with precision and confidence, they influence outcomes. In other words, your language doesn’t just describe the world of work; it helps shape it.

Jonah Berger is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Wharton Business School and the author of Magic Words, Contagious, Invisible Influence, and The Catalyst. He is a global  expert on natural language processing, change, word of mouth, influence and consumer behaviour. He has published over 80 articles in top‐tier academic journals and is regularly published by The New York Times and Harvard Business Review.

A version of this article appeared in the Dec/Jan 2026 edition of HRM Magazine.