What Your Words Are Actually Doing to the People Who Work for You

Scripture: Proverbs 18:21  •  Proverbs 15:1  •  Ephesians 4:29  |  Approx. 6-min read

The Cost of Communication Nobody Measures

There’s a leadership problem hiding in plain sight, and it’s not strategy, talent, or capital. It’s what you say – and how you say it – every day.

Most leaders think of communication as the soft side of the job. The real work is the numbers, the decisions, the execution. Words are just how you transmit the real work to other people.

That assumption is expensive. It’s also wrong. This episode opens Profit and Principle’s Communication block with a question experienced leaders rarely ask: what are your words actually doing to the people who report to you? The answer from three passages of Scripture is sharper than you might expect.

What Solomon Knew About Your Tongue

Proverbs 18:21 is one of the most striking claims in the entire book:

Proverbs 18:21  “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”

Solomon is not being poetic. He’s making a claim about causality.

The Hebrew word translated “power” here is yad – the word for hand. Death and life are in the hand of the tongue. This is the language of agency. Of grip. Of a tool being wielded with real force. Solomon is saying that the tongue is not a passive instrument that merely expresses what you’re already thinking. It’s an active force that produces outcomes in the people and culture it touches.

The fruit image at the end of the verse makes it explicit: whatever you do with your words, you will eat what grows from them. The harvest isn’t arbitrary. It’s determined by what you plant.

For the leader, this is not abstract theology. The people reporting to you – their confidence, their development, their willingness to take risks, their sense of what they’re capable of – is being shaped right now by the words you choose in ordinary conversations.

Proverbs 15:1 takes it further:

Proverbs 15:1  “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

The Hebrew for “soft answer” is maʿaneh rak – tender, pliant, gentle. Not weak. Not without content. But delivered in a way that takes the heat out of the room rather than adding to it. The contrast is dēvar ʿeṣeb – a painful word, a cutting word that lands hard.

Solomon is describing cause and effect. The soft answer actively redirects the energy of a conflict. The harsh word generates new conflict out of existing tension. Every time a difficult conversation begins, you are choosing one of those two outcomes. The content of your response matters. The register of your response matters just as much.

Ephesians 4:29 gives the most specific standard of all:

Ephesians 4:29  “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

Paul uses the Greek word sapros – the word for rotten fruit – to describe corrupting talk. He’s not describing profanity or wrongdoing. He’s describing speech that has gone bad. Complaints that don’t lead anywhere. Criticism that tears down without constructing anything in its place. Negativity that has become a habit rather than a response to something specific.

The positive standard Paul sets is demanding. Every word should be oikodomēn – the Greek word for construction, for erecting something that wasn’t there before. It should give grace to those who hear it. Paul is saying that speech should be an instrument of grace-giving – not every word a sermon, but every word constructive rather than corrosive.

Three criteria. Every time. Is this building something? Does it fit the moment? Will the person who hears it be better for having heard it?

What This Looks Like in a Real Conversation

Consider two leaders responding to the same situation: a project came in late, the client is unhappy, and the team lead responsible is standing in the office.

The first leader doesn’t raise his voice – he’s not that kind of person. But the words he chooses are precise in a particular way: “This isn’t the first time. I’m not sure what I need to do to make the urgency of client commitments clear.” The team lead explains. The leader listens, but the posture of the conversation has already been set. She leaves the room having heard the subtext clearly: you are a problem. She spends the next two weeks managing her anxiety. She doesn’t flag the next project that’s starting to slip, because she doesn’t want to be in that room again.

The second leader says: “Tell me what happened – I want to understand the full picture before we figure out what comes next.” Same situation. Same late project. Same unhappy client. But the words create a different room. The team lead tells him everything – including the resource constraint that was the real root cause. They solve it together. Two weeks later, she flags the next problem early. Because she’s learned what this leader’s words have consistently told her: this is a safe place to tell the truth.

Two leaders. Same facts. Completely different outcomes — produced entirely by the words chosen in one conversation.

Death and life, Solomon says. He wasn’t overstating it.

One Thing to Do This Week

Identify the one conversation, email, or meeting this week where your words will carry the most weight. A performance review. A client negotiation. A one-on-one with someone who’s struggling.

Before you walk in or hit send, run Paul’s three criteria from Ephesians 4:29 explicitly: Is what I’m about to say building something? Does it fit this moment and this person? Will the person who hears it be better for having heard it?

Write down your answers. If any of the three is no, revise before you deliver.

This isn’t about softening truth. Paul didn’t say to withhold hard things. He said to deliver them in a way that constructs rather than corrodes. That discipline begins before you open your mouth.

The companion PDF for Episode 21 includes a communication framework built around these three filters. Download it at profitandprinciple.com and listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.

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