The topic of leadership has gone viral many years ago. And still, it is one of the most disturbing topics regarding people, engagement, internal motivation, etc.
In modern organizations, these topic has further evolved with the evolution of employees’ mindsets toward the culture, the environment, and all definitions of success. With more generations in the same workplace at the same time, leadership has moved from traditional supporting to more flexible approaches that can create a supportive environment for everyone, flexibly answering the central question: “How can companies create more value by creating real comfortability for everyone.”
The physical environment is the basic that people need to feel OK at the workplace, but more important is how leadership behavior evolves to answer all changed circumstances.
Leaders are now more focused on soft than hard things in the environment. Moreover, with organizations becoming more and more virtual and people having the opportunity to work from anywhere, the focus has moved drastically into what we say, how we say it, and what impact it has on others. While local organizations, employing mainly people from the area, are somehow protected from significant failures, multinational organizations, having people from different cultures and having to deal with a variety of ethical and other norms understandings, have to learn how to evolve their sensibility toward the changed environment to help themselves continue to be competitive in the new reality.
The role of the leader has evolved so much that today’s leaders spend more time thinking about how to talk instead of thinking about how to act.
The modern organization now has more demands from the leadership teams. As a result, what leaders say can be a winning or losing element in how the organization will perform.
Based on my experience with more than four hundred senior leaders and short research on what is expected from leaders to say, conducted online across four other countries with more than two hundred and ten leaders participating, eight phrases used not used by good leaders evolved. You can find them below here:
“I don’t have time right now.”
A leader who has little time for you is not your leader. A good leader’s role is to be with the employee in every possible situation. Some situations may not need full involvement, while others may need total commitment. No matter the level of participation, people need to feel that they have support from their leader. For example, many employees always choose an inappropriate time, just before a big meeting, or when the leader must focus on creating some report or other significant communication element. But that is not a reason to show the employee how problematic their current behavior is for your agenda. Instead, good leaders turn that phrase into a positive flow by explaining why they can’t invest the time and offer other options. This medium may take a shorter time than investing time with the employee, but the positivity of the impact may be greater than expected.
“Employee X does this better than you.”
Want to lose someone on the path to achieving success? Tell them how insignificant their contribution is compared to someone else. The positive psychology theory indicates that people invest their best efforts in everything they do. But depending on the level of capability, IQ, EQ, power levels, etc., results may differ from employee to employee. Comparing one employee’s work with another’s is nothing more than a way to lower their internal motivation and engagement toward the final result you seek to achieve. That is why comparison may look like a prominent tool, but in most situations, it has the opposite effect than the one expected. So, next time leaders want to compare, they will better consider both sides they can create – positive and negative effects.
“Here, let me do it.”
There is no better way to make someone lose their motivation than by taking their work to do it by themselves. In comparison, many leaders see that as an opportunity to finish tasks faster and move forward; the effect on the person is more than destructive. Phrases like this one directly show employees that the leader needs to believe in their ability to finish the work successfully and contribute positively to the company’s success. Being careful with that phrase is a skill many leaders do not possess, and while thinking they create positivity, often the result is demotivation, detachment, and opposition. Instead of being thankful for what the leader “does for them,” many employees turn to the other side and search for a new team or organization where their contribution will be evaluated as positive instead of a weakness.
“Because I said so”
This one is my personal favorite. Times when managers and leaders were those with an enormous container of information and skills are long gone. Nowadays, people see opportunities often missed by leaders. What may seem like an obvious way to do something for the leader may be questionable based on the experience employees have gained in their path with the company. Sometimes, decisions taken by the leader may hurt more organizations than help success. To minimize the negative effect of a wrongly taken decision, leaders must learn vulnerability and turn demand in their saying into a question expanding discussion about the reasonability of the decision and the relevance of the other possible solutions, not coming from the leader. Discussional and flexible leaders today win the game, while those who turn only to their truth are the biggest losers.
“Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.”
There is always a structured way of doing things in an organization. Traditions are the most admirable approach for people with long work experience in one environment. But traditional ways are only sometimes the best solutions. Following the agenda set without the opportunity to change can be devastating for people who learn new things and develop themselves daily. Traditions in that direction are good but must be flexible and acceptable to changes when needed. That creates more robust processes and a higher personal attachment to the organization’s culture, structure, strategy, and vision.
“What were you thinking?”
An angry leader who disagrees with an employee’s actions is more dangerous than a disciplinary punishment. After disturbing the order and the culture, employees often expect to be punished, no matter if the results from their work have helped or annoyed the organization. A leader needs to be more ready to see and accept that different people are in front of them, which often goes with that phrase. And it is used to punish someone’s actions. No matter the intent or the result, if it is done differently than expected, the move has to have created a discrepancy. There is no other option. Or maybe not? Instead of going with the accusing voice and tone, turning them into questions to understand employees’ intentions and then judging based on collected information may work better. What may look like a wrong approach can quickly become the organization’s most profitable action.
“You don’t understand.”
Making that judgment based only on the leader’s thoughts is more than wrong. Many people need help understanding everything on the leaders’ minds, but that is not because they are stupid. It comes more from the situation. When leaders think, they often have much information to see the case from different angles and evaluate solutions from all perspectives. While the employees have access only to a limited amount of that information in the head of the leader, they often need to help understand everything in the leader’s head. With that thought in mind, leaders should not accuse people of being limited in understanding. Still, they must focus on creating knowledge from people without overwhelming them with information while sharing enough information to make a positive basis for change and success.
“Your performance can sink the company.”
Accusing someone that their action can destroy something more significant than them is not severe. Although leaders should recognize the level of impact the actions of their subordinates can create, often a parasite phrase accusing a single employee of all the challenges pops up from their mouths. Of course, individual performance cannot sink the company. And even the leader’s behavior cannot do the same. Still, in a moment of lost temperament balance, leaders use immature phrases, pointing to one person as the reason for all bad things happening. Not reframing the dire outlook that an employee’s behavior creates and moving the focus toward only their actions not only positions the leader as someone with an EQ deficit but simultaneously lowers morale and creates discrepancies and a lack of internal engagement from the employee toward the broader organizational objectives.
IN CONCLUSION:
Communication and its impact have always been exciting areas for exploration from experts in different areas. With organizational and personal awareness growth, how a leader communicates has become crucial for achieving organizational goals and objectives. Appropriately saying the right things is an art that can and must be mastered by every leader to grow corporate results in time. Focusing on what and how to say it and using supporting instead of accusing phrases is a good predictor of future success for every organization.
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