One of the places I most often see a compelling presentation mistaken for sound judgment is inside an organization. A charismatic person in middle management explains, often with considerable humor, everything upper leadership has done wrong. The conversation may occur in the cubicles, around the water cooler, or after work. The frustrations are familiar, the presentation is entertaining, and the people responsible for the decisions are generally absent.
Some of the criticism may be accurate. People close to the work can identify problems that senior leadership has overlooked, misunderstood, or allowed to continue. My concern is the additional conclusion an audience sometimes draws: because someone can describe leadership’s failures persuasively, that person must possess the judgment needed to perform the job.
I find it useful to ask what the critic would do if responsible for the same mission, resources, obligations, and consequences. That question changes the discussion. A proposal that sounds obvious from one position in the organization may become considerably more difficult when evaluated from the position accountable for the whole.
Criticism and responsibility require different kinds of judgment
The ability to identify a problem matters. A person should not have to produce a complete solution before being allowed to describe something that is wrong. Leaders who impose that requirement risk suppressing information they need.
However, identifying a failure and demonstrating readiness to assume responsibility are different accomplishments. When someone presents an alternative as an obvious improvement, I want to understand what the alternative requires, whose interests it serves, and what consequences it introduces elsewhere.
A decision that makes one group happier may create costs that another group must absorb. In a business, a more accommodating arrangement may become difficult to sustain if it weakens the financial performance supporting employment and compensation. In a military organization, a locally preferred approach may interfere with the purpose the unit exists to fulfill. The proposed improvement needs to account for those obligations.
This does not establish that leadership’s existing decision is correct. Leaders can misunderstand the mission, exaggerate constraints, and defend poor decisions by appealing to responsibilities they have not adequately explained. The same scrutiny should apply to their reasoning.
I believe caring for people includes caring about the organization’s ability to endure and accomplish useful work. That requires examining both the hardships a decision imposes today and the consequences it creates over time. An appealing alternative remains incomplete until those consequences have been considered.
The ability to express an organization’s frustrations can be mistaken for the judgment required to resolve them.
Why an engaging message can receive too much credit
In these conversations, humor and shared frustration can give the speaker an advantage. The audience recognizes the inconvenience or disappointment being described, while the competing obligations behind the decision may be less visible. Agreement with the complaint can gradually become confidence in the speaker’s broader judgment.
I see a similar difficulty in public communication. Fear, shame, sexual imagery, and ridicule can give a message emotional force that is separate from the quality of its reasoning. A warning can make an uncertain outcome feel inevitable. Humiliation can make disagreement socially costly. A joke can leave an audience feeling that a position has been disproved before its supporting evidence has been examined.
Research supports narrower observations about how presentation affects attention and distribution. Robertson and colleagues found that negative wording increased clicks in randomized experiments comparing headlines for the same news stories. Brady and colleagues found an association between moral-emotional language and greater sharing in Twitter discussions of three polarizing political issues, particularly within ideological groups. Neither finding establishes the accuracy of the messages being circulated. (Robertson et al., 2023; Brady et al., 2017)
The familiar expression “sex sells” also deserves qualification. A meta-analysis examining sexual and violent media and advertising content found that these approaches did not consistently improve advertising effectiveness and sometimes reduced it. Gaining attention does not necessarily produce better brand recall, more favorable attitudes, or greater purchase intentions. (Lull and Bushman, 2015)
These studies examine particular settings and outcomes. My broader concern is the judgment we make after a message has captured us: whether we treat the experience of being engaged as a reason to believe the claim.
Where persuasion becomes manipulation
I consider persuasion a legitimate responsibility of leadership. People need to understand why an organization exists, how a proposed change serves that purpose, and what will be required of them. A leader who explains those relationships clearly can help people move through uncertainty and accept necessary hardship.
Humor, enthusiasm, and conviction can contribute to that work. An engaging presentation can make a difficult idea easier to understand and give people a reason to remain involved in the discussion. Its value depends on whether it helps the audience evaluate the decision.
For this purpose, I understand manipulation as communication that gains agreement through a materially misleading account of the claim, the evidence, or the available choices. Exaggerating evidence, concealing relevant uncertainty, or using humiliation to discourage examination can serve that purpose. The audience is being moved toward a conclusion without receiving a fair opportunity to assess it.
The outcome the speaker wants does not resolve the ethical question. A leader may believe that a decision will improve profitability, compensation, or mission performance and still use dishonest methods to secure support. A worthwhile objective does not make a false explanation accurate.
Leaders also cannot disclose everything they know. Personnel matters, sensitive plans, and unresolved decisions may require discretion. I consider this a legitimate part of responsibility, but withholding information requires attention to the impression left behind. An omission becomes deceptive when it is deliberately used to create a materially false understanding.
A leader may need to explain that certain details cannot yet be shared. Where possible, the leader can still explain the decision criteria, the known effects, and what remains uncertain. That approach asks people to accept a limit on disclosure without asking them to rely on an invented explanation.
Persuasion should help people understand the decision well enough to evaluate it, including the costs they are being asked to accept.
Follow the claim when it changes
Nicholas Shackel’s description of the motte-and-bailey doctrine provides another useful way to examine persuasive arguments. The pattern involves moving between a controversial position and a narrower, more defensible one, while treating a defense of the narrower position as though it establishes the broader claim. (Shackel, 2005)
Consider a hypothetical claim that anyone opposing a particular policy is indifferent to human suffering. When challenged, the speaker responds that suffering deserves serious consideration. The second proposition may be widely accepted, but it does not establish the original accusation about everyone who disagrees.
The organizational version might begin with a confident assertion that leadership could eliminate a particular hardship without any meaningful cost. When asked to explain how, the speaker retreats to the observation that employees deserve consideration. That observation is reasonable. It leaves the feasibility of the original proposal unresolved.
People must be allowed to qualify their arguments and change their minds. Honest revision is part of clear thinking. The difficulty arises when the modest claim is used to protect the original assertion from examination, or when the speaker returns to the stronger assertion after the challenge has passed.
My response is to keep track of what is actually being defended. If the claim has changed, the discussion should acknowledge that change. Agreement with a general value does not establish that a particular course of action is feasible or wise.
Evaluate the argument and the claimed authority
These distinctions also affect how I assess people who offer leadership advice online. A large audience demonstrates reach, but it provides limited evidence about judgment, character, or the ability to accept responsibility for difficult work.
A person without experience or status can make a true statement. An accomplished leader can make a false one. Each statement still requires evaluation on its merits.
Broader claims to authority require additional evidence. When someone’s principal demonstrated accomplishment is attracting attention, I approach their advice about leading organizations with skepticism. I want to understand the experience behind the advice and whether it bears a meaningful relationship to the responsibility being discussed.
Creative work, teaching, research, and building an online community can all be substantive accomplishments. The relevant question is what the person has demonstrated through that work. Success at gaining an audience does not automatically establish competence in running a business, leading a military unit, or making decisions for another organization.
I place weight on the experience of people familiar with someone’s actual work. Repeated contact creates opportunities to observe whether commitments are honored, standards are applied consistently, and responsibility is accepted when outcomes fall short. This evidence is imperfect, and local popularity is no guarantee of sound leadership. It does, however, provide a fuller basis for judgment than a carefully selected public presentation.
Mentoring contributes to this development because it allows people to assume responsibility with guidance, receive correction, and learn from consequences. The credibility that emerges from useful work can support a public contribution. An audience alone cannot establish it.
A practical way to examine a compelling message
When a presentation makes me feel certain, angry, amused, or morally superior, I think it deserves a second examination. That reaction does not make the message wrong, but it gives me a reason to understand how I reached my conclusion.
The questions I find useful are straightforward:
- What specific claim is being made, and what evidence supports it?
- What responsibilities or constraints might be missing from the presentation?
- What would the proposed alternative require, and who would carry its costs?
- Does the speaker acknowledge uncertainty and answer the strongest objection?
- Would I accept this reasoning from someone whose views I generally oppose?
The questions apply to senior leaders as readily as to their critics. They also apply to my own writing. Agreement with a conclusion should not exempt its supporting argument from examination.
The responsibility behind my own writing
My Christian faith provides the underlying purpose for this discipline. In 2 Corinthians 10:5, Paul describes taking thoughts captive to obey Christ. I understand that responsibility to include examining my own assumptions and desires, especially the ideas I readily accept because they reinforce what I already believe. My conviction that truth belongs to God should make me more willing to recognize the limits of my understanding. (2 Corinthians 10:5)
A reader who does not share that faith can still examine whether a belief corresponds to reality, whether credible alternatives have received consideration, and whether emotional investment is making correction difficult. Those questions provide a common basis for evaluating the argument even where our underlying beliefs differ.
As I develop my public writing, I face the same incentives I am describing. I want people to read the work and find it useful. That creates a reason to make it engaging, but it also creates an incentive to sound more certain or provocative than the evidence warrants.
I would like my influence to grow from the usefulness of my work, the quality of my judgment, and the consistency of my character. That requires presenting other people’s positions fairly, acknowledging the limits of my evidence, and applying scrutiny to explanations I find personally appealing. Attention creates an opportunity to be heard. The responsibility that follows is to give people something worthy of their consideration.
Sources
- Robertson, C. E., et al. (2023). Negativity drives online news consumption. Nature Human Behaviour.
- Brady, W. J., et al. (2017). Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Lull, R. B., and Bushman, B. J. (2015). Do sex and violence sell? A meta-analytic review of the effects of sexual and violent media and ad content on memory, attitudes, and buying intentions. Psychological Bulletin.
- Shackel, N. (2005). The Vacuity of Postmodernist Methodology. Metaphilosophy.
- 2 Corinthians 10:5. English Standard Version.
Andrew M. DeRamus writes from his experience in real-estate operations and Air Force Reserve leadership.
For related reflections, read The Best Followers Usually Become the Leaders and From Direction to Influence.
Military references are presented in a personal capacity for biographical context. Views expressed on this site are Andrew’s own and do not represent the official position of the Department of Defense, the Department of the Air Force, or any military organization. No endorsement is implied.