Three Elements of Great Communication, According to Aristotle
by Scott Edinger | 9:00 AM January 17,
2013
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In my nearly 20 years of work in organization development, I've never heard
anyone say that a leader communicated too much or too well. On the contrary, the
most common improvement suggestion I've seen offered up on the thousands of 360
evaluations I've reviewed over the years is that it would be better if the
subject in question learned to communicate more effectively.
What makes someone a good communicator? There's no mystery here, not since Aristotle identified the three critical elements —
ethos, pathos, and logos. — thousands of years ago.
Ethos is essentially your credibility — that is, the reason people should
believe what you're saying. In writing this blog I made an effort to demonstrate
my ethos in the introduction, and here I'll just add that I have a degree in
communication studies (emphasis in rhetoric for those who want the details) for
good measure. In some cases, ethos comes merely from your rank within an
organization. More commonly, though, today's leaders build ethos most
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