Leadership and the language of lying
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Executives who paint a rosier picture than the numbers suggest speak differently, new research suggests
WALLACE IMMEN
If you hear your boss use the phrase “what an incredible year the company has had,” when reporting the latest results, it might be time to dust off your résumé, a new study suggests.
Using inflated language and third-person phrases such as “the team” and “the company” rather than “I” and “we” can be cues that an executive is lying or covering up a bad situation, according to research by David Larcker, director of the corporate governance research program at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and doctoral student Anastasia Zakolyukina.
They published their findings in a paper called “Detecting Deceptive Discussions in Conference Calls”.
Deceptive bosses tend to make more references to general knowledge and refer less to shareholder value. They also use fewer “non-extreme positive emotion words”. Instead of describing something as “good”, they call it “fantastic”. The aim is to “sound more persuasive” while lying.
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