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

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Positioning Systems Brand Promise 1. Priorities: Determine your #1 Priority. Achieve measurable progress in 90 days. 2. Metrics: Develop measurable Key Performance Indicators. 3. Meetings: Establish effective meeting rhythms. ( Cadence of Accountability) Compounding the value of your priority and metrics. The Improve Play “links the mental activity we do during bluework to the desired outcome – improving redwork” (p. 189). The Improve Play requires an attitude geared toward learning and growth. Marquet lists four principles of The Improve Play:

Leadership is Language David Marquet on Leadership is Language

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. In 1906, the English polymath Francis Galton attended a country fair. At one stand, visitors were asked to guess the weight of an ox on display; whoever came closest would win the animal. After the contest ended, the ever-curious Galton collected and analyzed all the votes. What he found was that the collective average of the guesses came closer to the real number than all but a few of the individual guesses. The group, in other words, knew better than almost any individual fairgoer. 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.Saving El Faro. Had they been enabled by “the power of connection,” the crew and captain of El Faro would have used language more effectively and constructively, and the outcome would have been entirely different. Leadership Is a Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don't" by L. David Marquet is an insightful and thought-provoking book that challenges traditional leadership communication practices and offers a fresh perspective on how language shapes organizational culture and employee engagement. Drawing from his experience as a nuclear submarine captain, Marquet presents practical strategies and real-life examples to help leaders enhance their communication skills and create environments that foster collaboration, autonomy, and high performance. 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.

Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say

If one person’s ideas seem off, run The Collaborate Play. The leader should “recognize and celebrate the divergent thinking” that “could be the source of innovation and improvement” (p. 261). Let's say you decide you no longer want to eat sweets, vet at the end of a long day you are faced with a bowl of sweets. You can consider two options for self-talk. You can tell yourself you can't eat sweets or that you don't Flatten the power gradient – to create a culture in which people feel safe enough to dissent, to be confused, and to admit mistakes. The power gradient is “the amount of social distance there is between one person and another” (p. 220) and manifests through the censoring of information. I think because of how I got there that when I say “play,” I often picture football because in that sport there is a break between each action. The field is reset and the offense has time to deliberately decide their next action: run, pass, or something else. So does the defense. And both sides are trying to read the other in determining their plan.

Over the years, different descriptors and signals have evolved to describe each group: leaders and followers, salaried and hourly, white-collar and blue-collar. The primary – and totally arbitrary – difference between them? One group is charged with making the decisions, and the other with executing them. FERNANDEZ-ARAOZ, C., ROSCOE, A. and ARAMAKI, K. (2017) Turning potential into success: the missing link in leadership development. Harvard Business Review. Vol. 95, No 6, November/December. pp86-93. Full of compelling advice on how to lead more effectively by choosing your words more wisely Adam Grant, author of Originals and Give and Take, and host of the TED podcast WorkLife David Marquet is the bestselling author of the 2013 book, Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders and the new book, Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don’t, which comes out on February 4th.

Leadership Language How to Develop an Effective Leadership Language

In these blinks, you’ll learn to identify outdated formulations you’re probably still using – and to develop new ones better suited to the workplace of today. Thinking work, benefits from variability (VS doing work that benefits from reduced variability). When you brainstorm, for example, you want as many ideas as possible to emerge. And when you make decisions, you like to have options. That’s why good leaders reject the old division between deciders and doers and instead include all team members in the decision-making process. They know what Galton knew: that the wisdom of many is almost always superior to the wisdom of one. This approach also increases people's motivation, people given autonomy over their work are happier and less prone to burnout. Give the pause a name – to make sure employees know how to call a pause. The pause could be called a “time-out,” saying “hands-off,” or raising a yellow card or a hand (p. 91). A pause is “practicing resilience.” And “there are no unnecessary pauses. Regardless of whether it turns out the pause was justified, every pause is necessary to establish a culture in which people are comfortable raising their hands” (p. 92).

In the old model, leadership was coercive. It was about getting people to comply with decisions they had no part in conceiving. Today, many leaders see the benefit of including everyone in decision-making processes, but are often ill-equipped to execute that play. Examples: participants to invidually and anonymously write down guesses before having group discussions (VS all suggestions being measured against and not far off from first proposed answer); another approach is to encourage asking good questions: "what am I missing?"; actively inviting dissent rather than subtly encouraging consensus.