Running head: ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP

Integrating Aristotles Rhetorical Appeals, Science, and Leadership William David Phillips University of Wisconsin-Stout

Author Note William David Phillips, Scottsboro, Alabama

ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP Abstract Aristotles three appeals logos, pathos, and ethos are effective tools in the

rhetorical framework. Using all three as part of a rhetorical strategy, in fact, is one of the most effective methods of persuading others, and as a result, changing the mind of others. Many people, however, have elevated the appeal to logic, or logos, over the other two, despite Aristotles belief that ethos is the most effective of the three. Yet with the emergence of contemporary brain research, emotion (pathos) is being show to be the primary driver of thinking and behavior. As such, strategies may need to change regarding the method rhetoricians, and the public at large, use to effectively lead others, persuade others and motivate them to action.

ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP

Considered one of the most important people in the development of Western philosophy, Aristotle developed one of, if not the most important works on persuasion ever written. In it he defined rhetoric as "the art to see or identify in any given circumstance the available means of persuasion (as cited in Smith, p. 67). According to Aristotle, persuasion is made up of three appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos. Each of these three rhetorical appeals can, or at least should, be found in any persuasive process. Logos, as used by Aristotle, attempts to persuade using rational arguments. When a communicator employs statistics, what they deem to be credible sources, or reasoned arguments, they are utilizing logos in their persuasion (Wright, n.d., para 6). When a communicator uses pathos as a persuasive strategy, they are making an emotional appeal. When the rhetorician appeals to the needs, values, or emotions of an audience, this constitutes an argument based on pathos (Wright, para. 7). Ethos references the character or credibility of the communicator. Ethos is conveyed through reputation, credentials, tone, or style. Seeking to establish the trustworthiness, expertise and honesty of a communicator demonstrates an attempt to establish his or her ethos. Aristotle argued that ethos was the strongest and most reliable form of persuasion, though the most effective form utilizes all three appeals (Wright, para. 5). While all three integrated properly has the most effective persuasive ability, modern culture has elevated logos to a lofty position while emotion has been downplayed. It almost seems that rhetoric itself has become synonymous with logos. Many view good rhetoric as being discourse comprised of logos, while faulty rhetoric

ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP simply skims by on emotional appeals and cults of personality (Rice, 2007). Elizabeth Vogel, in her 2008 dissertation at UNC-Greensboro entitled, What We Talk About When We Talk About Emotion: The Rhetoric of Emotion in Composition, notes the following:

In A Feeling for Aristotle, Ellen Quandahl describes the absence of a discussion about emotion in composition. She writes, One is struck by the thundering silenceon the place of pathos, or a theory of pathos in writing instruction. Therefore, despite our fields acknowledgement that words shape reality, we have failed to connect words to the theory of emotion.

Yet while logos might be primary in the eyes of many, the context and situation should be the primary determiner of the appeal chosen. In a political campaign, for instance, a candidate might turn to ethos to appeal to a group of supporters. In the 2012 presidential election, Mitt Romney used ethos, making the case that because of his business background, he was the better qualified of the two candidates to deal with economic issues. A commercial about an animal rescue shelter may use pathos as its primary appeal, tugging at the heartstrings of viewers to motivate them to provide money to support the shelters work. In practice, however, emotion is often the appeal many communicators utilize first, particularly in political rhetoric. Contemporary politics is replete with phrases such as, They want to take away, or They just want people to... For example, in the recent political battle involving sequestration, Nancy Pelosi noted:

ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP If you address the tax expenditure issue, well limit the amount of deductions people can take, you will have a fairer tax system, and you will not have to then take food out of the mouths of seniors on Meals on Wheels and all of the other community-oriented initiatives that we as Americans take pride in (Kessler, 2013, para. 2).

So from one perspective, the political right views the political left as using fear, not logic and reason to try to win this legislative battle. Not to be outdone, psychologist Daniel LeBeir, in his blog at Psychology Today, believes the political right is trying to win political debates using fear. He says: In brief, the Tea Party/GOP is pushing for economic and social policies based on fears: Fears of massive transformation, turmoil and chaos underway in our society. And, fears about how those transformations will impact lives largely defined by self-interest, power and money. (2011, para. 2). In recent years, scientists have begun to explore the depths of human behavior, focusing specifically on what causes a person to act in different situations. These scientists are looking at how the brain functions and how information is passed through the billions of connections in the brain trying to uncover what makes humans do what we do. Several years ago, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio made a incredible discovery, what he called the somatic marker hypothesis. He studied people with damage in the part of the brain where emotions are generated, the area of the brain called the amygdala. He found that the patients seemed normal, except that they were not able to feel emotions. However, they all had something interesting in common. None of these people could

ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP

make decisions. They could describe what they should be doing in logical terms, yet they found it very difficult to make even simple decisions, such as what to eat. The somatic marker hypothesis, therefore, proposes that emotional processes can guide behavior, especially a persons decision-making. In fact, even if what a person believes are logical decisions, the very point of choice is quite possibly always based on emotion ("Emotions Create Our Preferences: The Somatic Marker Hypothesis", 2012). If we are primarily emotion-based, business leaders attempting to persuade their employees to follow them through one more change in how the company functions have a practical decision to make. Do they continue to rely primarily on logic and reason as well as facts and statistics in their persuasion or do they begin to re-establish emotion as at least on equal ground as logos and ethos? And if they do elevate pathos, how is it used? Nancy Duarte is an expert in presentation design and the owner of Duarte Design, where she has served as CEO for 21 years. Her company creates presentations and trains leaders in their VisualStory methodology. This methodology applies storytelling and visual thinking to craft persuasive communications designed to shift audience beliefs and behaviors. In her book Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences, Duarte describes her research into some of the most important speeches in American history, speeches that resonated across time and space and motivated people to act. In her research she found an interesting correlation. Each of the speeches contains a common structure. Great communication, Duarte found, starts with "the way it is." Then, it makes repeated contrasts between "the way it is" and "the way it could be." Finally, she suggests

ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP that great communication ends with a call to action, and a promise that new, greater things are possible. Duarte notes that his back and forth movement in rhetoric reflects what happens during a period of resonance. Resonance is a physics concept that describes a system in which an abnormally large vibration is produced in response to an external stimulus, occurring when the frequency of the stimulus is the same, or nearly the same, as the

natural vibration frequency of the system (resonance, n.d.). To understand this, consider what happens to a crystal glass when exposed to a musical tone of the right pitch. That right pitch is its resonance frequency and the result is a shattered glass. Applying that to rhetoric, when our communication resonates, change happens. How do we best create resonance? According to Duarte, we need to become a storyteller. Why? Storytelling utilizes multiple psychological and emotional triggers and creates an experience for the audience. "Creating desire in the audience and then showing how your ideas fill that desire moves people to adopt your perspective. This is the heart of a story" (Duarte, 2010, p. 27). Why is that? Psychologists and scientists have come to understand that the human mind, in its attempt to understand and remember, assembles the bits and pieces of experience into a story, beginning with a personal desire, a life objective, and then portraying the struggle against the forces that block that desire. Stories are how we remember; we tend to forget lists and bullet points. (Fryer, 2003, para. 8) Duartes thesis finds a commonality within the leadership writings of Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. Authors of one of the longest continual research projects on leadership, their book The Leadership Challenge lays out five qualities of effective leaders. One of

ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP

those five qualities is that great leaders inspire a shared vision. Constituents want visions of the future that reflect their own aspirations. They want to hear how their dreams will come true and their hopes will be fulfilled, the authors note in a Harvard Business Review article on the subject (Kouzes, & Posner, 2009). Duarte as well as Kouzes and Posner seem to be saying the same thing: show a person what could be and you can move them to action or help them believe something different. How do you do that? Neuroscience provides us with the answer: appeal to the emotions. Yet Aristotle would continue to whisper that the rhetorician also needs facts and information as well as character and credibility to effect change. So is there a way each that of these elements can work together to create effective rhetoric? This author believes the answer is Yes! Utilizing Aristotles appeals, neurosciences research, Duartes common structure, and Kouzes and Posners leadership characteristics, a way to integrate all these for effective persuasion can be developed. Why? A big part of a business leaders responsibilities is to motivate people to achieve certain goals. To do that, the leader has to engage the persons emotions (Fryer). Traditional rhetoric, giving statistics and facts and quotes from authorities has two problems, according to screenwriter, professor, and consultant Robert McKee. First, the people spoken to will have their own set of authorities, statistics, and experiences. While the communicator is trying to persuade them, those people are arguing back in their heads. Second, if the leader does succeed in persuading them, they have done so only on an intellectual basis. Thats not good enough, because people are not inspired to act by reason alone (Fryer, para. 5).

ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP

McKee continues, stating that a second way to persuade peopleand ultimately a much more powerful wayis by uniting an idea with an emotion. The best way to do that is by telling a compelling story (Fryer, para. 6). This connects with Duartes back and forth resonance concept because leaders not only have to understand their companies past, but then they must construct a what will be if we do this future. It might be expressed in the following manner. Each of Aristotles appeals have equal weight. One does not have prominence over the other and effective rhetoric not only uses all three appeals but also integrates all three appeals. Pathos is reframed not simply as emotion, but as a driver of behavior and decision-making, which neuroscience is now substantiating. Emotion moves people to act, so it is a primary motivator. Interestingly, Aristotle appears to come to the same conclusion. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty explains that Aristotle viewed pathos as that which produces change in a body that would not otherwise experience such a change (Rice, 2007b). Pathos is, therefore, an agent of change, not simply a feeling. If pathos is a motivating agent, vision is where pathos would take the person. Thus effective persuasion would help the person or audience grasp a picture of what could be compared with what is. The rhetorician paints a picture of what tomorrow would look like if their process or idea were enacted. He or she would differentiate that future from what is todays reality or the vision expressed by another rhetorician. Pathos becomes the framework upon which the rhetorician builds his or her argument. It answers the what? and where? questions. If pathos is the framework, logos fills in the details of structure. Rhetoric devoid of information and details is not true rhetoric. The what? and where? that pathos

ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP provides require the how? and when? that flows from logos. Vision without execution does not equal persuasion. It is empty. Ethos cannot be forgotten. The credibility and character of the rhetorician are imperative to the effectiveness of the new reality being proposed. American politics is

10

rife with leaders who were great orators but whose ethos was so lacking that few people listened to them. Therefore ethos could be restated as do what you said you would do, which is one of Kouzes and Posners five qualities of a great leader. If rhetoric, and particularly Aristotles version of it, is the means of using a text to persuade a person or group of people to do something, to believe something different or to change how something is done, then a more holistic view of his appeals must be considered. Without it, rhetoric is limited in its effect, especially long-term.

ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP References

11

Duarte, N. (2010). Resonate: Present visual stories that transform audiences. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley. Emotions Create Our Preferences: The Somatic Marker Hypothesis. (2012) Neurorelay. Retrieved May 1, 2013 from http://neurorelay.com/2012/05/15/emotions-create-o ur-preferences-the-somatic-marker-hypothesis/. Fryer, B. (2003, June 1). Storytelling That Moves People - Harvard Business Review. Retrieved May 1, 2013, from http://hbr.org/2003/06/storytelling-that-movespeople/ar/1. Kessler, G. (2013, March 1). Sequester spin: The threat to free meals for seniors - The Washington Post. Retrieved May 1, 2013, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/sequester-spin-thethreat-to-free-meals-for-seniors/2013/02/28/daed6ee2-8211-11e2-b99e6baf4ebe42df_blog.html. Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2009, January 1). To Lead, Create a Shared Vision Harvard Business Review. Retrieved May 1, 2013, from http://hbr.org/2009/01/tolead-create-a-shared-vision/ar/1 LaBier, D. (2011, April 12). Why Tea Party/Republican Ideology Is Rooted In Fears Of A Transforming America | Psychology Today. Retrieved May 1, 2013, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-new-resilience/201104/why-teapartyrepublican-ideology-is-rooted-in-fears-transforming-amer.

ARISTOTLES APPEALS AND LEADERSHIP resonance. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved May 01, 2013, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/resonance.

12

Rice, J. E. (2007a, August 11). The secondary role of pathos | The New Pathos. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://newpathos.wordpress.com/2007/08/11/the-secondaryrole-of-pathos/. Rice, J. E. (2007b, August 13). Pathos as the enactment of change | The New Pathos [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://newpathos.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/pathos-as-the-enactment-of-change/ Smith, C. R. (2009). Rhetoric and human consciousness: A history. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press. Wright, D. (n.d.). Writer's Web: The Rhetorical Triangle and Three Rhetorical Appeals. Retrieved May 3, 2013, from http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/Rhet_Triangle.html.