Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don't

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Changing the way we communicated changed the culture. Changing the culture transformed our results. Changing our words changed our world” (p. 6). — L. David Marquet BEDDOES-JONES, F. and SWAILES, S. (2015) Authentic leadership: development of a new three pillar model.Strategic HR Review. Vol 14, No 3. pp94-99. The Connect Play creates a culture where people can be vulnerable, can dissent, and feel cared for. As mentioned earlier, leadership is often viewed as a collective phenomenon or process. The distributed leadership model suggests that leadership can be shared among team members. Individuals assume the role of leader when necessary to support the team and peers. This approach can only succeed if the organisational structure and culture support it. If an organisation is centred on individual leadership, distributed leadership won't work.

Leadership Is Language Summary of Key Ideas and Review Leadership Is Language Summary of Key Ideas and Review

The language of the old approach to leadership is deterministic and binary – all about doing, not about thinking. How to avoid the seven common sins of questioning, from binary questions (should we do A or B?) to self-affirming questions (B is the better option, right?) Leaders need to be looing at the room: Who is being quiet? It's likely they think something but do not feel welcome to express it. Ways to prevent workplace alienation include transparent communication, an open-door policy and employee recognition programs. Learning the language of leadership Improve, don’t prove–Ask your people to improve on plans and processes, rather than prove that they can meet fixed goals or deadlines.

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The “decision-makers” should not be the “decision-evaluators.” This avoids over-attachment to a decision, known as escalation of commitment (pp. 155, 156). We need to always remember that the organization is perfectly tuned to deliver the behavior we see, and people's behaviors are the perfect result of the organization's design. As individuals, we should embrace our responsibility for being the best we can be within the design of the organization. But as leaders, our responsibility is to design the organization so that individuals can be the best versions of themselves. Words are important,” said Isaac Oates, CEO of Justworks, an HR, benefits and payroll platform. “It’s through our words that we communicate our intentions.” Early studies on leadership focused on the traits and behaviours of individuals in senior positions. As a result, leadership is often perceived as an individual competence or role. Yet, in more modern and agile organisations, all employees need leadership qualities. The specific aims and focus of leadership may vary depending on a person's role and their organisation. What is an effective leadership style? In this conversation with LBC Presenter Matthew Stadlen, Marquet shows managers and leaders how to enable their team through communication.

Leadership is Language - Agile Jottings Brief Summary of Leadership is Language - Agile Jottings

The captain and crew of El Faro were doomed because they’d also been programmed to run certain plays, behave in certain ways, and use certain language. They were trapped by an outdated playbook and unable to see a different way of doing things. Even if they could envision an alternative approach, it would have been extremely difficult to break out of patterns they’d been following their entire careers. We see the angst in the words of the officers as they try—and fail—to break these hardwired patterns. They continued following a monolithic plan to take the Atlantic route when they should have completed one section at a time—to the first decision point at the top of the Bahamas and then to the second decision point at Rum Cay.CHAPMAN, M. (2020) Courageous leadership: what defines it in the modern organisation. Strategic HR Review. Vol 19, No 2. pp47-50. In one experiment, 129 Jewish Israeli students were asked to rate their level of support for the statements "I support the division of Jerusalem" and "I support dividing Jerusalem." When the statement used nouns (division), participants reported less anger and increased support for concessions. Further, when asked how angry they would be if the policy were adopted, anger was tempered when the question relied on nouns. Since all innovation starts as an outlier thought, driving consensus is bound to suppress innovation. Balance redwork and bluework. More bluework might be necessary at the beginning of the project; whereas more extended periods of redwork are acceptable toward the end. The Collaborate Play runs in bluework – thinking and decision-making. Collaboration should produce a hypothesis that can be tested during redwork.

Leadership Language How to Develop an Effective Leadership Language

All communications, both internal and public messages, should reflect The Connect Play (pp. 268-269). First, working products were to be delivered frequently, as frequently as every two weeks. These short bursts of work were called "sprints." Early and frequent testing exposure to users allowed early and frequent adjustments. Second, the team would work You probably don’t realize it, but the language most of us use in our twenty-first century workplace is a relic of the Industrial Age. It’s designed to maximize efficiency, reinforce hierarchy, and encourage conformity. But the world has changed a lot in the past century. These days, adaptability, teamwork, and diversity are more important to a company’s success. So why are we still using a playbook developed for a different era? The chapter is about the power of our programmed language. It’s rooted in the Industrial Age playbook. It’s the same language you may be using now during COVID19, when your business depends on you using a whole new playbook and language. El Faro is worth discussing because we have records of the actual words spoken and the actual actions taken by the captain and crew. Marquet uses the transcript to provide an unparalleled glimpse into the language a team used when faced with life-and-death decisions.

The New Playbook. In a playbook that changes the language and approach of how we work together, all the team members work together in both decision-making and doing. Discussion is open, and workers are involved in evaluating and guiding goals and processes alongside leaders. For the book’s purposes: bluework is defined as decision-making work, and redwork is defined as “doing” work. While some readers may find the book's examples and strategies more applicable to hierarchical organizations or larger teams, the underlying principles and concepts are adaptable and relevant to leaders in various contexts. You’ve just engaged in the two primary modes of human activity: thinking and doing. You thought about where you wanted to go, and then you went. In your private life, you switch between these modes several times a day. Everybody does. But in the working world, most of us are categorized as either thinkers or doers. That’s because most companies are still run according to models developed in the Industrial Age. Discipline sustains momentum, over a long period of time, laying the foundations for lasting endurance. It turns out that immediate, positive, and certain rewards are the most powerful for establishing and maintaining a behavior.