Sometimes how something is spoken can reveal as much about what is being spoken as what is being said. To quote the late Marshall McLuhan, “The medium is the message.” ...
As you begin to explore the intersection between power and language very early on it becomes apparent that there is a relationship between “how” something is spoken and what it means. This is distinct from “what” is spoken. While most people are tracking the content or “what” that’s spoken, “how” it is spoken is received and responded to at a direct neurological level pre-cognitively. What I mean by pre-cognitively here is that there is a neurological response before any meaning is applied. Simply speaking the neurological response is the generation of a “state” experience in response to what is being spoken irrespective of content. This knowledge in and of itself is extremely powerful.
This whole idea is reminescent of the idea proposed by Frank Herbert in his sci-fi book series “Dune” and the Bene Gesserit “witches” use of the “VOICE” - a powerful, control technique that worked based on bypassing the cognitive faculties of judgement to create virtually instantaneous and irresistible responses to commands given. This technology took advantage of both the neurological response to the “how” and the cognitive response to the “what” that is spoken.
So often in our wired world we forget the impact of the interpersonal. We are used to receiving information in written, audio (e.g.: telephone, radio, recordings ...) and visual (w or w/o audio e.g.: computer graphics, television, movies ...) forms. These forms of media transmit their information devoid of the subtle cues of live interpersonal interaction. As McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” This is never more true than in face-to-face encounters.
Using McLuhan’s formula - f(medium = message) in regard to human interaction we have: Individual Person (the medium) is the Information Being Transmitted (message). That is we are responding in the interpersonal context to the individual who is communicating as the message being communicated. At a neurobiological/neurocognitive level this is especially true. The cross-mapping between the individual and the message is virtually complete. The individual becomes fully associated with the message they are communicating and the message becomes fully associated with the person who is communicating it. This is a “technique” used extensively in political campaigning.
Building the validity of the candidate in a political campaign builds the validity of the messages they convey, just as building the validity of the messages being conveyed by a political candidate builds the validity of the candidate. This little “trick” of power allows a good campaign advisor to establish a deep foundation of credibility for their candidate regardless of the message, stance or position they are taking. When the validity of the candidate is higher than the validity of the message the candidate uses that personal validity to build validity for their messages. When the message the candidate is presenting has a higher validity than the candidate presenting it the candidate uses the validity of the message to build personal validity. Regardless of the direction taken the validity of both the candidate and the message are bolstered and begin to recursively reinforce one another. [NOTE: “Validity” is the measure of pre-existing confidence the audience has in the candidate/message.]
Much of the validity of an individual in interpersonal encounters is based in the subtle non-verbals cues being offered by that individual as they present themselves and their ideas. The most significant of all is the level of congruity the individual maintains as they present themselves and their ideas. What is being transmitted in addition to the infomational content of the message is the emotional content associated with it (and therefore the presenter).
You’ll find more information about this in the book “Primal Leadership” by Daniel Goleman, et al and it’s worth a read. I also recommend the HBR article by Goleman, et al, “Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance”, which summarizes the book about 75-80% of the way in just thirteen pages. Even more valuable in regard to this topic, and especially the topic of congruity is the book, “Live for Success”by John T. Molloy - while can be challenging to get a copy the effort will most surely be worth it.