Honesty is the Best Story
Last week I was coaching an executive client for his upcoming conference keynote and the topic of honesty came up twice during our session. The discussion centered on when to be completely and unflinchingly honest with an audience, and when to gently subvert or enhance honesty, either for improved impact or to sidestep admission of failure. Personally, I always champion absolute honesty. My client wasn't so certain.
Speakers often hyperbolize or exaggerate for effect, myself included. It’s a testy choice, even controversial. But the point is not to lie when delivering a talk. It’s to add story that makes a point more forcefully, creates emphasis, or evokes a strong emotion through a rhetorical device. Honesty is core to credibility, but intensifying the meaning behind the honesty can turn information into actionable inspiration.
So if each piece of a story is not literally true, is it truly honest? Well, no. And yes.
Wins and Losses
Honesty is so crucial in communication because it creates trust, establishes authority, and demonstrates strong character. When a leader attempts to keep it all rosy and positive, nothing but success and sunshine, something feels off. The audience senses dishonesty, a carefully cultivated performance rather than the actual truth of the message they’re receiving.
Consider curated social media content; how honest are those Facebook or Instagram pages filled with nothing but life's highlights, victories, and beautiful moments but none of the daily mundanity, disappointments, or bad hair days? It's clear the posts belong to people trying to be what they're not.
The best presentations balance information with vulnerability and humanity. Real connective content requires sharing the losses along with the wins.
Honesty + Information = Emotion
Mike Robbins, an expert on emotional intelligence, tells us that trust forms the foundation of high-performing teams. Employees who trust their leaders report 50% higher engagement and 30% better collaboration.
Trust in a speaker works the same way. It occurs when that speaker shares honest data combined with the equally honest raw emotion, lessons learned, and organic personal responses – both positive and negative – to that data.
Great #CorporateStorytelling goes beyond strict facts; it also evokes emotion from how each of those facts directly affects us in deeply personal ways. Honesty often needs a boost of challenge or motivation for our audience, something they can feel then act on in order to reach positive transformation toward the best possible outcome.
Bottom Line
Data alone tends to be dull and cold. Data comes alive when we add our unique personality and meaningful story to give our data meaning. Honesty and opinion partner very well in public speaking, provided one doesn't overshadow the other. Adding an opinion to expand on a fact is smart – using opinion in place of a fact is not.
Authentic leadership and strong emotional intelligence also make fine bedfellows. Empathy in a talk shows strong EQ, an undeniable aspect of honest leadership. For example, admission of failure is hard to include in our content, but a wonderfully honest way to subvert ego and display humility. Sharing from the heart turns curated content into honest connective storytelling.
As I told my coaching client, keep it honest, but take some risk and don’t fear a bit of hyperbole if it helps drive the information home. Our audience will appreciate the balance of real and slightly more than real. They’ll find credibility in the message, and value in the messenger.
