5 Red Flags That Could Detect Untrustworthy Speakers

5 Red Flags That Could Detect Untrustworthy Speakers

In public speaking and in regular communication it’s difficult to separate your impression about the speaker from your impression about his message's content or purpose. That’s why it is important to spot the red flags to help you decide whether the speaker is ethical and trustworthy or not. When it comes to detecting lies, people often focus on body language that reveal deception, but this is not helpful at all times especially since research suggests that many of these cues are not always associated with lying or negative meanings.

Below are 5 behavioral and verbal red flags that can help you detect untrustworthy speakers:

1) Rudeness

There would never be a valid reason behind being rude to others even if they made small mistakes. When a speaker shows rude attitude towards an unexpected interruption or technical error this could mean that this person is inflexible and usually is patronizing others.

2) Over complementing managers or for the audience

It’s definitely okay to give compliments or credit to people who deserve it for acknowledgment or encouragement, but over praising the superiors or the audience themselves might provide an indicator that there’s a gain behind it, which may make you question the speakers’ hidden agenda.

3) Using sarcastic jokes about other individuals or entities

Unfortunately, this mistake is widely used by many speakers. It’s when a joke go wrong or one of the audience start it then the speaker continues it and accidentally comment negatively about a certain group or person. Even if that group or that person isn’t amongst the audience, people will still find it disrespectful and a big reason to doubt the speaker’s credibility.

4) Using the wrong pronouns

This one is also a very common behavior. The best leaders are team players who realize the contribution and value of every single person in the group. But as many of us know, there are plenty of bad managers who believe that success is theirs alone, and failures are caused by their subordinates.

If the speaker uses the term ‘they’ in communicating negative incidents and If he chooses the word ‘I’ to describe the department’s success, that’s a red flag!

5) Being blindly biased

When the speaker starts addressing a certain point of view or an option in an extremely biased manner or when he starts to show his blind support for a certain entity or group of people, this could also be an indicator that the speaker will only consider offering solutions that he believes are efficient, regardless of the audience's needs, objections or opinions.

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