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

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The words were false comfort designed to keep people on task, conforming to their roles, and continuing course. Are the questions you ask your people making them comply or providing them with the energy to drive discretionary effort? We’ll explore the Seven Sins of questioning next blog. Saying “can’t” implies there’s an external force trying to keep you from an undesired action. When you use the word “don’t,” on the other hand, the power comes from inside you. Intrinsic motivation is much more powerful in driving human behavior than compliance with an outside force. The redwork-bluework operating system requires individuals at all levels of an organization to be thinkers and doers. Leaders can influence the system in three ways:

Leadership Language How to Develop an Effective Leadership Language

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. Look your colleagues in the eye [and] ask them how they are,” he said. “Really listen to the answers, and tell them regularly what you are grateful for in their work and why.”Every time you use your senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, electric signals travel throughout your body and into your brain, gathering in your frontal lobe (just behind your forehead) to form a perception about the world in front of you. These sensory signals pass through the emotion-creating limbic center just before reaching the reasoning area of your frontal lobe, giving you an emotional, intuitive picture of the world around you. Accompanying these intuitions are physical responses: a lump in your throat for sadness, flushing with heat for anger, paralysis for fear, rapid heartbeat and sweating for anxiety and anticipation. These emotions are finely tuned, sophisticated tools that have evolved over millions of years-ignore them at your peril. The Collaborate Play runs in bluework – thinking and decision-making. Collaboration should produce a hypothesis that can be tested during redwork. At Toyota they use the Andon cord. Andon is the Japanese word for a traditional paper lantern. At Toyota, manufacturing workers pull an Andon cord when they encounter a problem in the production system. The cord turns on an indicator light. Before Toyota made cars, they made sewing machines. Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota, designed one of the first automated loom designs, which immediately stopped the machine when the nee-de broke. This prevented wasted material and defective product. When Toyota started building cars on the assembly line, the managers wanted a similar system, whereby workers could signal that they needed to stop production, thus avoiding unnecessary waste. So the plant designers installed pull cords that illuminated lanterns (andons). A worker simply pulled the cord to light up the andon, letting a supervisor know there was a problem at the production station. Hence the term Andon cord.

Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What - AbeBooks Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What - AbeBooks

We all seem to be agreeing on x - before we make a final decision, let's flip to What would be the case for not doing x? What could be bad about it?' Trust first – because people will work better, harder, and longer when they feel trusted. Create a culture where dissent is acceptable (pp. 234-235). In Leadership is Language, Former US navy captain David Marquet expands on his bestselling leadership book Turn the Ship Around! and shows managers and leaders the next step in their development: how to enable their team through communication. AZIZ, H. (2019) Why is humility so relevant for leaders and can it be developed through coaching? Strategic HR Review. Vol 18, No 1. Reviewed in In a Nutshell, issue 85.

Another standout aspect of the book is its exploration of the role of questions in leadership communication. Marquet argues that asking the right questions can lead to better problem-solving, increased employee engagement, and a stronger sense of ownership. He introduces the concept of "intent-based leadership" and provides practical techniques for engaging employees in meaningful dialogue and decision-making.

David Marquet - Leadership is Language | How To Academy L. David Marquet - Leadership is Language | How To Academy

Commit actions, not beliefs – because not everyone needs to agree with the decision, but everyone must support it through their actions (p. 145). If someone else had to take over this project, what would you say tot hem to make it even more successful? Nature is nothing if not efficient, so the fact that the human brain uses an astonishing 20 to 25 percent of our daily calories speaks to the survival value of this decision-making power. While most animals possess approximately proportional brains for their size, the human brain is an outlier, three times larger than it should be. 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. 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.”Let Positioning Systems help your business achieve these outcomes on the Four most Important Decisions your business faces: All communications, both internal and public messages, should reflect The Connect Play (pp. 268-269).