this video is all about how to sound more decisive and confident when you speak now being indecisive or sounding indecisive when you speak is a common hurdle for many emerging leaders most of the time it's because you over analyze for fear of making the wrong decision you're waiting for approval or permission or you're unsure that you have the answer so you want to see what other people are going to say first but when you are indecisive in work conversations it makes you look like you lack confidence in yourself which in turn makes people question your capability at work basically what happens is because you don't sound decisive or confident in what you're saying other people don't believe in you if you don't believe in yourself why should other people believe in you and belief in you you want other people to believe in you as a leader this is really important in your leadership journey you absolutely need to establish this especially if you want people in your team to follow you they need to believe in you and they need to believe in the direction you're going in so in order to help them believe in you you need to sound decisive in what you say in the direction you're going in in everything you do and say so being decisive is critical in leadership and as tony robbins says knowing how to be decisive projects confidence and charisma and as a trait of true leaders so let's look at how you can be more decisive when you speak at work and one of the key lessons that i need you to understand is that moving from questions to statements will absolutely help you sound more decisive so when you sound indecisive it's because you lack confidence in your decisions you're waiting for approval from someone or you're waiting for someone to give you the right answer this insecurity that you're feeling often leads you to asking questions instead of giving statements or using statements and this is quite often where the problem begins for most people because questions can make you sound indecisive essentially when you ask a question you're asking for permission or you're asking somebody the answer so you can move to the next step you're basically asking for approval because you don't have enough conviction or confidence in yourself to make that decision whereas statements they make you sound more decisive they make you sound like you are certain and that you're sure about the direction you're going in you're not being passive you're not waiting for approval you're putting your want or your desire out there in a statement in a confident and assertive way now of course there is a time and a place for asking questions in the workplace questions can really help you to create a more inclusive workspace a more inclusive atmosphere and environment with your team but sometimes as a leader you just need to sound decisive you just need to sound confident and self-assured in what you're telling people so i want to encourage you to move from questions to statements if you are sure about something if you have decided about something i want you to tell other people in a statement don't use a question don't look for approval don't ask for permission i want you to put your statement out there in an assertive and a confident way and this whole video will help you do exactly that i'm going to share with you some case studies that are going to help you move from asking questions to using statements to help you sound more decisive and confident when you speak so i'm going to share with you two quick case studies we're going to look at the sentence used and the words used that makes somebody sound indecisive and why it makes you sound indecisive then we're going to look at how you can fix it how you can change it what you can say so you sound more decisive case study one so in this example i want you to imagine that you are a leader and you're in charge of organizing a presentation with two of your colleagues and because you are the leader you're the one who is in charge of delegating tasks and organizing all the tasks that people need to do so what you want to do here ideally is to give your team members confident instruction and assertive delegation so they know exactly what they need to do but there is potential for you to be indecisive or potential for you to sound indecisive when you're doing this and what commonly happens is you might defer the decision-making responsibility to those team members simply because you don't want to sound pushy you don't want to sound bossy or you don't want them to think you are an authoritative leader therefore you ask questions instead of using confident statements when you delegate or when you tell those people what you want them to do and you might sound something like this should we perhaps have marguerite begin the presentation and then james would you like to take over with point one now i don't know how you interpreted that sentence or how it sounded to you but to me it sounded really indecisive it did not sound like you were a confident leader at all so i want to delve in and take a look at what exactly makes this sentence sound so indecisive now a couple of things to highlight here when i say should we perhaps have marguerite begin the presentation this sounds really indecisive for two reasons the first is it's a question and by using a question as you've learned you give your delegation power or making power to your employees as a leader and as a manager you want to be really really careful of doing this especially when you are delegating tasks to them the second reason it sounds really indecisive is when you use the word perhaps and this is a type of filler word that's commonly used when we don't want to sound pushy or when we're seeking approval for our suggestion from the other person now the last part of the sentence where i say james would you like to take over with point one this is again a question which as you've learned and as as i've just mentioned it gives decision-making power to somebody else or decision-making power to the people in your team now it's really important to note as a leader that you have decision making power this is your right this is part of your role as a leader this is not something that you should or that you want to delegate to other people in your team not all the time anyway and also you don't need approval for your suggestions you are the leader you have the right to make those suggestions this comes with the role that comes with the territory so you don't need to ask for approval from your team for every suggestion that you have now there are caveats for both of the points i just mentioned about of course sometimes you may want to give decision-making power to the people in your team you may also want to encourage them to make suggestions this is obviously really important part of leadership but sometimes you need to sound decisive sometimes you need to sound confident and sure of what you're saying and what you're doing and when you ask questions you don't sound like any of these things so let's look at how we can change this sentence to make it more decisive i would replace should we perhaps with let's for example let's have margarite begin the presentation and i would replace james would you like to take over with point one with james i'd like you to take over with point one so do you see how both of these examples are a lot more decisive they're a lot more certain and they're a lot more assertive as well altogether it would sound like this let's have marguerite begin the presentation and james i'd like you to take over with point one now this sounds way more decisive and a lot more assertive than the other sentence i shared with you in this video you're putting your suggestion out there in a direct way you are not asking for approval you're not waiting to see what other people think you're being assertive and clear about what you want the people in your team to do this is what's going to make you sound a lot more decisive when you speak let's look at another case study imagine that you and three other colleagues are organizing a fundraising event for your company it's a bake sale and you have to organize together you have to organize the tasks that everyone needs to do so in this situation it's a group effort there isn't one particular person who is the leader of the group and who organizes everyone else it is a group effort this means that for you to get the job or the task that you want you have to jump into the conversation you have to put your hand up you have to be very assertive and very confident about volunteering for the task that you really want to do so the task that you want to do is to buy the ingredients for the bake sale now if you were being indecisive about this if you were communicating in an indecisive way it would sound something like this would you all like me to buy the ingredients for the bake sale remember you would use a question not a statement you would be asking for approval you would be asking for permission from those other people in the group as to whether you can by the ingredients or not but if you want to switch that around and if you want to sound decisive instead of indecisive when you speak you need to say something that is a lot more assertive you don't want to ask a question remember asking questions makes you sound indecisive let's analyze this sentence and work out what exactly makes it sound so indecisive so the part where you say would you all like me too as you've already learned in this video it's a question using a question instead of a statement gives decision-making power to the other person rendering you powerless as a professional and especially in this kind of situation you have the right to volunteer for tasks that you want to do this is your ride i know you might want to fit in with a group i know you might not want to sound pushy or bossy but if you give the decision-making power to other people what generally happens is people will walk all over you you won't get the opportunities that you want you won't get the opportunities that you need in your career to really succeed and to really be visible so you absolutely have the right to volunteer for tasks or volunteer for jobs or volunteer for projects that you want to do it's not about being pushy it's got nothing to do with being bossy but it has everything to do with you putting your hand up for the opportunities that you need to succeed in your career so let's look at this sentence again and see how we can make it sound more decisive i would replace would you like me to with what i will do is for example what i'll do is buy the ingredients for the bake sale and kathy and max can take the orders from the customers why this works so well is because you are communicating exactly what you want to do in an assertive way you're not allowing other people to decide for you you are putting your wants your desires your plans out there in a really confident way if other people disagree with you if other people want to do that task you've volunteered for well they need to disagree they need to voice their opinion and that is absolutely their right it's your right to have your opinion it's other people's right to have their opinion as well and that is one of the key messages that i want you to walk away with from this video especially when you're learning how to be more assertive in your communication style that it is your right to voice your opinion it's your right to say what you want to say how you feel to say what you've decided as well this is your right this is being assertive this is being confident and charismatic as a leader which as tony robbins says is a trait of a true leader so i want you to switch from could we to let's would you like me to should change to what i will do is and additional ones you haven't learnt yet are i'll tell you what i propose how about we or i'd like to now do you have any sentences or phrases that you like to use to help you sound more decisive in the workplace if you do let me know in the comments below because i know that we can all learn from them if you like what you learnt in this video then please hit the subscribe button and the notification bell below it really helps to support my channel also we've talked a lot about being assertive and speaking in a more confident way in this video if that is something you want to delve deeper into then you want to check out my assertive communication skills masterclass it's currently available on udemy it's a video course online video course that will definitely help you to become more assertive and more confident when you speak at home but also at work so i'll put a link in the description below a discount link that you can check out and if you want to learn how to speak in a more confident way and with more authority at work then you need to watch this video right here it will definitely help you out with those things thank you so much for watching this video i hope you enjoyed it and have a fantastic week