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

Product Information

If someone else had to take over this project, what would you say to them to make it even more successful?"

Ask probabilistic questions instead of binary ones. Instead of the binary "Is it safe?" or "Will it work?" ask "How safe is it?" or "How likely is it to work?" The idea is to invite thinking that considers future events as a range of possibilities, not as will-happen or won't-happen choices.It's unclear why nine minutes passed before this conversation finally took place. Either way, when it was activated, the blowout preventer did not operate properly and failed to seal the well. The subsequent investigation revealed problems with the assembly and maintenance of the device, including dead batteries and mis-wired coils. The delay in attempting to seal the well may have been a contributing factor to the disaster. With the well unsealed, the oil and gas mixture was able to flow rapidly to the platform, feeding the existing fire. Eleven people died. Over the next four hundred days, 5 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, making the Deepwater Horizon oil spill one of the worst environmental disasters in history. Commit, don’t comply–Rather than expect your team to comply with specific directions, explain your overall goals, and get their commitment to achieving it one piece at a time. But there’s no single magic phrase that will continuously inspire your team to achieve its best; motivational leadership comes from an authentic emotional connection with your team, explained James Rohrbach, president and chairman of language school Fluent City.

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. The transcription from the conversations between crew members serves as an example of the failure of language. The organizational culture failed the crew members and led to their demise. “Encouraging people to speak up, or even ‘empowering’ them with statements like ‘don’t hesitate to change course’ in an environment of top-down decision-making, simply does not work” (p. 25).

One page summary of Turn the Ship Around author's latest book Leadership is Language

How you speak to your team – whether making a statement or responding to a question – impacts them. Effective communication is essential for success, allowing you and your team to establish trust and create better long-term outcomes. Your leadership development goals should include learning to use your words carefully, eliminating jargon to avoid confusion, and focusing on the end goals when communicating. Areas where language matters Make sure to leave room for the other people to participate in the conversation. If you're not hearing from them, give them time/space. If you want to hear more from your team you need to talk less. As a statistician, Deming recognized that if greater variability in the manufacturing process meant higher costs and products that felt cheaper, the reverse must also be true: reducing variability in the manufacturing process would lower costs while producing higher-quality products. In other words, Deming's first key insight was that quality did not cost money, it saved money. This approach came to be known as Total Quality Management or Total Quality Leadership. 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?

The “decision-makers” should not be the “decision-evaluators.” This avoids over-attachment to a decision, known as escalation of commitment (pp. 155, 156). Our coaches favor the use of the Competing Values Leadership framework (Cameron, Quinn, DeGraff, & Thakor). The framework describes how people and cultures can overemphasize Competition over Collaboration or Creativity over Control. Instead, the strongest organizations have intentional conversations about having the right blend of the four values , relative to their missions and goals. Complete, don’t continue. Break tasks down into sizeable chunks and complete them one by one. Celebrate successes, focus on behaviours not characteristics, focus on the journey not the destination. When an organization repeatedly enforces the idea that people should do as they're told without question or suffer consequences, they learn to be absolutely certain that each action is correct before taking it.Applying the Redwork – Bluework Principles in Workplace Situations. Language changes can turn effective bluework on – or off. Craft your language to make it clear that you want discussion and collaboration. Use the principles above to move fluidly between decision-making and doing. The El Faro and many workplaces operate with a playbook left over from the Industrial Age, which focuses on coercion, doing (not thinking), reducing variability, complying, and conforming to roles.