This is great especially for women in the workplace who have learned kinda self-demeaning patterns of behavior in order to not be seen as a bitch. I started communicating this way in my VERY male dominated field and people definitely started taking me at least slightly more seriously. If that makes sense
Even in my heavily female-dominated industry (and office), using this kind of phrasing sees me taken more seriously by management, HR, and clients. I also find that for things like requesting PTO or schedule flexibility, I’m more likely to get uncomplicated agreement from the company if I phrase it as a statement of intention rather than a request for permission. This also goes for asking for accommodations; “X is not going to work, I need Y and Z” is a lot more effective than “I would like Y and Z, if it’s not too much trouble.”
I highly recommend these phrases for any individual. When utilized with good context that avoids adding passive aggressiveness, these phrases convey confidence, assurance, and capability. Those qualities are admirable so people respect you more if they believe you have them, even if you’ve made an error because you’re also taking accountability and proceeding without groveling or getting defensive.
If you speak like you know what you’re doing, people are going to give you a good faith take that you are correct. Likewise, if you apologize frequently for yourself for insufficient reasons or act insecure in your desires or proposals, people presume you have reason to be insecure or apologize.
These are also easier for the other party to deal with. The responses being replaced feel more humble or less demanding when you’re writing them but they’re actually asking the other person to do very slightly more work. For a busy person getting their tenth organise-a-meeting email for the morning, being told a time and checking their calendar to see if it’s free is slightly more convenient for them than being asked to propose a time themselves. Receiving a courteous but self-assured response is marginally less emotional work than getting an apology or insecure-sounding backpedal where they have to spend a second trying to figure out if you’re being polite or if you need reassurance. Not only do these replacement phrases make you sound more competent and confident and give you more control, they also make you very slightly easier to work with, and if you’re interacting with the same people all the time, that adds up.
