Leaders - It Matters How You Ask!

I have just finished the Blinkist version of ‘Leadership is Language’ by David Marquet, author of another excellent book I read some time ago called ‘Turn the Ship Around’.

Here’s a summary of the summary:

If you're a leader, the language you use is probably inherited from the industrial age, when people were divided into strict categories. Deciders and doers, leaders and followers, decision makers and decision executors. Today, the most successful organisations reject that division, including all team members in both thinking work and doing work. To achieve this, leaders need to rethink radically the language they use to communicate.

For example, by asking open-ended questions. To move from one phase of a project to the next, rather than asking ‘everyone okay with this?’ Or, ‘this looks fine, right?’ ask, ‘how could this be improved?’ Or, ‘on a scale of one to five, how confident are you feeling about moving ahead?’ This will generate more diverse and honest input and will motivate the team as well.

In short, the old 'tell and do' division of tasks has little value in a rapidly changing and complex business world. Appropriately involving others in decision-making not only generates new and better ideas, it boosts team engagement as well.

#leadership #teambuilding