You know why most leaders lose their teams?
Because they talk like robots.
Perfectly polished.
But completely lifeless.
When you say, “We will leverage synergies to optimize strategic alignment,” what the team hears is white noise.
There’s no heartbeat in it.
No pulse.
It’s words that could have been written by anyone for anyone.
They tick all the boxes but light no spark.
But here’s the irony: most leaders don’t sound robotic because they don’t care. They sound robotic because they care too much.
They’re terrified of saying the wrong thing. So they soft-cushion every sentence to be as inclusive as possible.
Until nothing edgy remains.
But the moment you remove the risk, you also remove the resonance.
You can’t expect emotion when you refuse to show any.
You can’t move people when you hide what moves you.
You can’t build trust with sentences that sound robotic.
Talking like that is like trying to hug a machine. It might respond, but it won’t respond to you.
People don’t want leaders who sound perfect. They want leaders who sound real.
They want to hear the quiver in your voice when something truly matters.
They want to hear the passion when you’re truly excited about something.
So stop running your words through the corporate filter that kills everything human about them.
And start saying things the way you’d say them to a friend you deeply respect.
That’s the easiest way to not sound like a robot.
Simply let them hear that there’s a person speaking.
Keep lighting the path,
Michael
