Sage Advice

Simon Lloyd-Evans | Mon Sep 21 2026
Sage Advice

Ethos, pathos, and logos

Ethos, pathos, and logos are the three core modes of persuasion defined by Aristotle to convince an audience.

The Three Appeals

Ethos (Credibility): Appeals to the speaker's character, authority, or expertise to show the audience that the source is trustworthy. Ethos is a component I cover in another blog “BVO - The Quiet Risk of “By Virtue Of” Authority”
Pathos (Emotion): Appeals to the audience's feelings, such as empathy, fear, joy, or anger, to make the message personal and relatable.
Logos (Logic): Appeals to reason using facts, data, statistics, and clear arguments.

Why am I talking about Aristotle’s Appeals? As a business advisor and fractional CIO I talk to many Boards and Senior Leadership teams about significant system and technology investments, and organisational change initiatives to enhance their business. Many of them have predetermined mental models and often have already decided an outcome before I talk to them, even if they do not realise it.

As an advisor I need to know how this comes about, and how to take the “blinkers” off and have an open discussion about what could be done to benefit their business.

A bit of background about the brain, its relevant I promise.

Neural plasticity and synaptic pruning

The brain reaches maximum volume around the age of 9, with the makeup of white and grey matter being approximately 35% / 65% respectively. Grey matter is your neurons, and white matter is your synapses. Joining neurons via synapses in various patterns gives the brain its ability to think and remember. At a young age we develop many linkages via our synapses as we experience the early years of our lives. This results in oversubscription of synaptic connections resulting in a higher proportion of white brain matter. During adolescence the brain undergoes an intense period of reorganisation and optimisation, commonly called synaptic pruning. At this point our brain is in a state of neural plasticity. Neural plasticity and synaptic pruning happen throughout our life as the brain adjusts to its environment and brain volume decreases with age, but this reorganisation is never so intense as it is during adolescence. As we exit adolescence the brain’s proportions of grey and white matter have changed, with more grey matter – neurons, that now have fewer but stronger synaptic links, than white matter - synapsis.

The Adolescent Brain

For pre-teen and teenagers, the period of change in brain development during adolescence is an opportunity to strengthen positive neural pathways. The adult brain is moulded by the stimuli / environmental factors they are exposed to during adolescence. The stimuli can be positive or negative, or even absent, thus producing the corresponding development during adolescence.

As any parent has experienced, adolescence is a time of joy seeing your child develop and angst as they test out their environment (and parents). This is a time when the child needs to develop independence in thought and action. They are experiencing a common animal need to test their limits and learn from their mistakes, to better prepared them for life away from the protection of their family. They are also developing a need to procreate and start their own family to ensure the success of their genes.

UNICEF’s 2017 report on “The Adolescent Brain: A Second Window of Opportunity” points out that an adolescent’s “need for independence is not only emotional. Adolescence is a critical developmental phase of life, a time during which children acquire the social skills they need to thrive as adults. Just as critically, it is also the time in which their brains develop – or fail to develop – in a way that enables them to reach their full potential in life.”

UNICEF refers to childhood brain development as the first window of opportunity, a time to influence the development of children’s brains through nutrition, stimulation and protection from violence and other harms. As well as inherent genetics UNICEF highlight that the second crucially important window of opportunity to influence the development of the brain also includes experiences the adolescent has and the environments they operate in.

Consider an adolescent, lets call them Taylor, that was consistently told as they grew up that the government is corrupt and conspiracies are rife. As Taylor develops into adulthood, they carry with them hard wired belief structures about Government corruption embedded in their synaptic pathways.

You have a discussion with Taylor about a jurisdiction that has a well-functioning and just democratic political system.

If your discussion about politics and government effectiveness uses a Logos appeal of facts, data, statistics, and clear arguments, you will be unlikely to convince Taylor about the effectiveness of the government.

Taylor’s hard-wired mental models outweigh reason, a Logo appeal; a Pathos Appeal would likely be more successful.

Our mental models are with us all the time and bias our thinking, often subconsciously. With good mental models that have been pruned into shape this can be a virtue. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true.

The Sage Advice Link

Here is where I make the link to the senior management advice I give.

As I mention, one of the effects of synaptic pruning is that it affects our mental models in respect of Aristotle’s Three Appeals.

Depending on the context of the discussion I have with my customers the Appeals surface in different ways and impact how the discussion is understood.

Ethos (Credibility)
Pathos (Emotion)
Logos (Logic)

Synaptic pruning can enforce an appeal to the detriment of the others. If you, or your customer, have developed mental models and are applying them to situations that need more expansive consideration, you may be overlooking better opportunities and options

As a consulting CIO the expectation from most customers is that I want to talk about their technology, an incorrect predisposition. I start a consulting engagement with an open mind and ask open questions. I put the technology to one side and discuss their organisational context (challenges and opportunities), the business Why (why do they exist, what are they hoping to achieve), and how they fit in, the value they bring.

If you start with technology you are starting at the end, the solution, rather than the start, the business. Technology gets in the way and stifles the conversation, it obscures the real issues, narrows the dialogue, becomes technology for technologies sake.

With an open mind you have everything in your consulting tool bag at your disposal. The open mind allows you to understand your customers and what mental models are prevalent. I use this approach so I can convey my advice while respecting their views. Consulting is not a debate that needs winning it’s an exercise in understanding your customer, the context, and their views. Only then can you offer truly sage advice.

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