Speaking In Leadership Redux
by Miki SaxonToday’s post is on a subject that angers me no end; it’s also a lead-in to tomorrow’s post.
I wrote about this lunacy shortly after I started writing Leadership Turn, but several recent phone calls made me go back and find the post to bring it to your attention again.
Of course, since you’re here reading this it’s likely that you’re already in agreement with me and don’t inflict this mindset on your people.
It’s about all those bosses (far more than you might imagine) who evaluate their people based on the language they use to discuss their actions as opposed to the actions themselves.
I thought about rewriting it, but decided not to, nothing has changed and the folks who called me recently are all facing similar problems.
Speaking In Leadership
I had a great time with “Jean,” who took me up on my free coaching offer and also received permission to write about her situation, since I’ve heard similar stories over the years.
She told me about a specific situation within her department and what she was doing to handle it. I asked her if it was working and she said it seemed to be, but that she’d rather solve it using leadership skills instead of just management skills.
Jean went on to say that she wanted to be chosen to attend her company’s leadership classes and to do so she had to demonstrate strong leadership potential.
Jean and I had a great discussion (we ran over the hour) about her interest in leadership, her goals, how she communicates with her people, her group’s culture within the overall company culture and what she’s accomplished—solid management, on-time/in-budget projects, low attrition, high morale and strong productivity in her organization.
Apparently the accomplishments aren’t enough for Jean’s boss, who’s been know to skip over DOers in favor of people who “speak leadership,” when describing what they’ve done.
In fairness, and before you get the wrong idea, Jean said that she loves working with him, he’s been a great mentor and promoted her twice. He just has this thing about leadership.
Since, in my opinion, Jean’s already demonstrated her ability to lead, what she needed to learn was how to talk about it. I knew she had read both books and blogs on the subject, so I asked her to choose something and then describe it to me as she would to her boss.
As I listened, the problem was evident. Jean’s description was low on “I,” high on “us.” It was about the challenge and how the team succeeded in overcoming it—exactly the way a good leader talks.
When I mentioned that, Jean laughed and said that speaking “leadership” sounded pretentious to her and that none of the leaders that she’d been around spoke that way, including her boss. She said that although she’d found a lot of the tools she used described in leadership books, she just assumed that they were different when used by a “leader.”
Now, I’m the last person to stomp on common sense (it’s too uncommon), so I suggested to Jean that she walk her boss through the prequel to the event, in other words, how she planned to achieve whatever, since when describing her planning she did use leadership terms.
As for all you bosses who recognize yourselves in the above—stop it! Stop focusing on the talk and check out the walk of your people who DO. Maybe they haven’t learned the language of leadership or maybe, like Jean, they find it pretentious to describe what they do that way, but if you’re desire is to identify those with the best potential I hope that you’ll start looking for it in what your people DO.
PS I’m extending that coaching offer again today.
Your comments—priceles
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Image credit: Shawn Econo on flickr
June 12th, 2009 at 11:28 am
There are several issues in this post. One, the distinction between what a manager and what a leader “do” and how one is being a manager and being a leader. You can be a leader whether you do the work of managing. You can also be doing the “leader’s” duties and still not “be” the leader. It is not clear to me what the exact issue is here because if indeed Jean is “being” the leader and is not noticed, perhaps it’s because her boss is threatened by her and hence does not give her recognition. It could simply be that she’s not being the leader even though she’s able to get the “results” by managing. There’s not enough information from the post to know the whole picture.
June 12th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Hi Anna, I think we are from two different school’s of thought.
I don’t believe that one can manage today’s workforce without so-called leadership skills. Nor do I believe that leadership is positional; rather leadership should permeate an organization, so the the person best equipped for the task at hand steps up to lead it.
I wrote a series on this called Leader vs. Manager. There will be a link to it in tomorrow’s post, along with links to two other commentaries on the subject.
The issue is exactly what is stated and that’s one of language usage. This isn’t an isolated attitude, I’ve run into it numerous times and I hold to my premise. It’s what your people DO that matters, not how they describe it. Based on Jean’s actions and accomplishments she’s prime material for additional development whatever it’s called.
June 12th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
I’ll look forward to tomorrow’s post, Miki. sounds like it’s going to be interesting.
Will enjoy looking at your leader v. manager series also.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Yes, it’s difficult to be competitive in today’s marketplace without leadership. And, I agree with you that it would be wonderful to have leadership permeate an organization. In fact, it would be beautiful if leadership permeated every area of our society. However, that is not yet the case. Jean or others may still be working in environments that have the hierarchical “leadership” model. Yes, Jean is productive. My question is, if she is truly being a leader, why are others not following?
June 15th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Jean couldn’t get the results she does without leading—no manger can with today’s workforce.
Her promotions and accomplishments speak for themselves, but her boss only hears certain language.
Out of curiosity I called Jean and asked her how things were going. She said she had done one better than I suggested, explaining to her boss before the project in the language he liked and then walking through it again at the end using the language she prefers, but drawing exact parallels.
It must have worked, she’s been sent to three leadership training classes and received another promotion.
Word choice does make a difference.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:46 am
Kudos to you for coaching Jean on using her boss’s language to get a buy-in to develop her for further leadership. Yes, she has demonstrated her leadership ability in that organization. And, yes, the words we use are VERY important. One can only hear through his/her own filters.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Thanks, Anna, but I beg to differ on one point. I do believe that it’s the responsibility of the leader/manager/leadager/whatever-you-want-to-call-them to speak in the language each person hears and hear in the language their people speak. That’s part of being a boss. It doesn’t always work that way, but it should.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Personal leadership involves communicating effectively regardless of whether the receiver is a “boss” or not. What a beautiful world it would be if everyone took the responsibility to speak in a “language” that the receiver understands and hears what the speaker said in the way it was intended.
June 17th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I agree totally, what a wonderful world it would be. But, as I said, I do believe that the ‘boss’ at every level bears the responsibility of speaking the language of each team member.