A friend recently asked me to listen to the father-of-the-bride speech he had written for his daughter’s wedding. It was a good speech. Thoughtful, polished and full of pride. But as he read it, I realised something was missing.

It sounded a little like a CV. There were all her school achievements, the things she had accomplished, the wonderful woman she had grown into.

When he finished, I said, “It all sounds great. But where’s the emotion?” He looked at me and said, quite simply: “I don’t do emotion.”

Fair enough. I said, “Maybe you don’t. But think about the little girl you raised. Think about the woman she has become. Think about how proud you are of her and how much you love her. Then tell her that.”

And that’s what changed the speech. Instead of saying to the room, “Nina has always made me proud,” he looked directly at his daughter and said, “Nina, you have always made me proud.” And he did that at all the moments in the speech that mattered.

He stopped speaking about her and started speaking to her. For a man who “didn’t do emotion”, he found a way to communicate something deeply emotional without becoming someone he wasn’t. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

That, for me, is the power of Sincerity. You don’t need to be dramatic or use flowery words.  You simply need to put your heart into what you are saying and mean it.

When your words and your feelings are aligned, people sense it.

And in leadership communication, that matters enormously. Because sincerity, one of the principles of my HACKS Code, is what multiplies connection, to build trust.

Sometimes the smallest change in communication is the most powerful one. My takeaway? Stop speaking about people. Start speaking to them.