Mastering The Language Of Leadership

When it comes to leadership, language is one of the most valuable tools you can use to empower people. Something as simple as taking a closer look at the words you use can make a drastic difference in your ability to increase employee engagement and performance.  Many companies offer best employee engagement programs for this. While we all must work to keep leadership language unbiased, there is something else fundamental to look at: belief language versus behavior language. Not understanding the difference will impede your effectiveness.

What Is the Difference Between Behavior and Belief Language? 

Let’s start by looking at the difference between behaviors and beliefs. Here’s a very simple breakdown:

What Are Behaviors?

·         Behaviors are what a person is doing

·         Behaviors can be observed, heard or experienced

·         Behaviors can be measured

What are Beliefs?

·         Beliefs describe a person’s internal judgments about another

·         Beliefs are not behaviors

·         Beliefs are not directly visible or measurable

Behavior Language

How do these two terms apply to language? Let’s start by talking about behavior language.  When you are using behavior language, you are talking about something specific and measurable, because behaving is about doing. This type of language also requires more thought. An example of behavior language is, “leaves the office at 4:30pm.”

Belief Language

On the other hand, belief language requires a lot less thought. It is centered around judgments and ideas. You’re probably used to hearing belief language on a daily basis. An example of belief language is “rude.” Rude is not something a person did; it’s a judgement of a behavior.

The Problem

Here’s the problem: Using a word like “rude” is open to interpretation. Does rude mean an employee doesn’t speak to coworkers? Does rude mean they interrupt in meetings? Does rude mean emails are terse?  You can see how this kind of language can lead to miscommunication and misinterpretation.

Yet using a behavior language, like, “doesn’t notify the team when going to be late or miss a meeting,” makes things pretty clear.  That statement allows a person to know exactly what is being discussed.

Belief and Behavior Language in Action

Here’s an example. A manager might say, “Jordan, I need to you be more organized when attending meetings.”

Okay, what is organized exactly? Maybe Jordan thinks organized means reserving the conference room well in advance and arriving fifteen minutes early. So he changes his behavior accordingly.

Three weeks go by and Jordan ensures rooms are arranged and he arrives early to every meeting. He’s feeling confident in the changes he made. Yet after the third meeting, his manager pulls him aside and says, “Jordan, I have already spoken to you about being more organized. What happened?” Jordan replies that he’s been setting up the rooms and arriving on time since they spoke. Yet the manager replies, “Yes but, I want you to have a pre-distributed agenda for every meeting, not come early.”

Why Didn’t You Say So?

Jordan shakes his head and asks, “Okay, then why didn’t you say so?” And that question is the essence of the problem with belief language.  Only the speaker knew exactly what the word meant and what it would look like to him. How can you create change if no one knows what specifically you’d like changed?

Keep an eye out for common belief language and check yourself when you use it. Here are some examples: team player, proactive, responsible, cooperative, and unmotivated. You may think you know what team player means, but we all have our own interpretation of it. Maybe one person sees a team player as someone who instigates debate in meetings, while the other sees team player as someone who stays late every night to make sure deadlines are met. So telling an employee that they are not being a team player is completely unclear and will not lead to improving behavior

What Can You Do? Stop Yourself and Ask This Question.

Belief language usually comes to mind first. What can you do when it pops up? The goal is to identify the behavior language that exists underneath a belief. For example, let’s go back to the concept of “rude.” What behavior exists underneath the term rude? It could be eye rolling, interrupting at meetings, not saying hello in the hallways or any variety of things. Once you identify the behavior, you can transform your language.

A Tool for Transforming Belief Language Into Behavior Language

Okay, but how? My favorite tool for transforming belief language into behavior language is this simple question: “What does that look like?” If you can answer that question, you will be effectively translating your belief language into behavior language. 

This same tool can be used from the other side as well. When someone asks you to do something or make an adjustment in your own behavior, ask them, “What does that look like?’

Here’s an example. Say a leader says to you, “I’d like you to help your team be more successful.” I’d ask, what does that look like?

As a warning, I will say that many people will think we all know what success looks like! That is incorrect. Does success look like increased revenue? Client satisfaction as seen by reviews? Higher scores in employee engagement surveys? And what are the goals? Does this “success” need to be actualized in two months? Six months? When I know the answers to these questions, I will be able to change my behavior to achieve the required outcome.

So be mindful of your language when talking to a client, colleague or employee. Are you setting up a potential miscommunication by using belief language? Or are you using specific examples that will lead to behavioral change? Master the language of leadership.

As a quick practice, think about your own goals. Choose one and ask yourself, “What does that look like?”

 

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

 

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Effective Coaching Part 2: Moving Into Action

In our previous post, we introduced what we find to be an extremely effective coaching model—W.I. N. B.I.G. It involves six steps, three to build awareness, and three to move the coachee to action. To read in detail about building awareness, including applicable examples, check out part-one of our series on the W.I.N. B.I.G. formula. 

 

Today we are going to discuss moving a coachee into action. As a quick review, here are the six steps in this formula, starting with how to build awareness:

 

Build Awareness

·         W-onder About Root Cause

·         I-nvestigate Wants

·         N-ame Possible Solutions

Move to Action

·         B-uild a Plan

·         I-nsure Action

·         G-ive Affirmation

These steps help you create a dialogue that will increase your employee’s effectiveness and improve your management skills. Everyone involved wins big!

Let’s take a look at how to move an employee to action using three steps:

Move to Action – B.I.G.

After you helped someone Build Awareness, they are ready to implement a winning course of action and make a commitment to follow through with the plan.  Action is the key here. You can Build Awareness all day long, but if you never Move to Action, you’ve done nothing but had nice conversations with your employee. The goal here is concrete action—doing things differently to reach higher levels of success.

B-uild a Plan – Action

People love this stage.  Now you can start moving and grooving.  You can finally Build a Plan that gets you to some action. An important thing to note here is that most of this decision will come from the coachee, not you.  What is it going to take for them to implement the solution that they have chosen?  What are the tangible steps that they will take so that things look differently in the future? Your goal in this stage is to help the employee devise a realistic plan that gets them where they want to go in a do-able manner and timeframe. 

This is the stage where you get down and dirty. Vague and abstract ideas don’t work here. Remember your high-school-writing teacher who taught you the 5 W’s? Polish them off because they get lots of use in this stage.  To Build a Plan, you’ll want to ask questions like:

·         What are you going to do?

·         What steps do you have to take to get there?

·         When will you do that?

·         Who do you need to bring into the process?

·         What will you have to say, “no” to in order to make this happen?

As a coach, it’s OK to challenge your employees during this stage. The reason you’re coaching them is because they’re in their own way of success. Getting out of one’s own way can be a tremendous challenge that is usually approached with some degree of trepidation. For that reason, watch and listen to your coachee. Do you get the sense they are not believing in themselves enough or holding back somewhat? If so, challenge them by upping the ante of their actions.

As your employee is creating their plan, help them to make it SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-specific. Find a way to make things measurable—even if they are measured by ‘yes, I did it’ or ‘no, I didn’t do it.’  The action steps also need to be achievable so the people can see the progress they are making and feel good about it. Goals and tasks often need to be chunked down to manageable pieces; otherwise the person gets overwhelmed and gives up. So if necessary, break the actions into achievable pieces so they can do a little every week and be able to report on progress. The action steps also need to be realistic given the employee’s circumstances. Having someone say they are going to increase annual sales by 80% in a week is probably a bit of a stretch. Finally, be sure to have a timeline in place. 

I-nsure Action – Accountability

One of the most important things a manager can do as a coach is hold the person accountable for the actions to which they’ve committed. As the person leaves the effective coaching conversation and gets sucked back into the black-hole that is their busy life, it is natural for the insights they gained to become blurred and for their planned actions to become a bit more daunting. Left to their own devices, most people will let things slip back to the status quo and then fall back into their old routines. That’s what makes this stage of the coaching process so important. Your goal here is to Insure Action by establishing an accountability system. Having the coachee say they are going to do something is not enough. Here, you want to ask specific questions like:

·         How will I know?

·         When will you let me know how it goes?

·         How much time do you need before checking back in with me?

·         How will I know if you need a nudge?

·         What’s the best way for you to circle back to me?

It can be great to follow-up these questions with a conversation about what you should do if the person doesn’t follow through on their commitments.  Questions like these are good ways to start off the conversation: 

·         What should I do if you don’t get back to me?

·         How would you like me to follow up if I don’t hear back?

·         If you don’t follow through, how should I bring it up?

Some people prefer an email reminder, some want you to come and give them a hard time. The key here is to do it compassionately and matter-of-factly. 

Many managers say at this point, “Why should I have to worry about them following through?  If they really want to make the changes or right the problem, then they will do it. . . if they don’t, it’s their loss.” That’s understandable.  And be realistic for a second—everybody’s human. How many times have you said you were going to stop procrastinating your expense reports until the last minute, or you were going to do a better job at standing up to your boss and not backing down as quickly?

The whole point of accountability is that eventually the employee becomes accountable to herself, not you. 

Follow Up to Insure Action

The ‘action’ of an effective coaching conversation does not happen during the conversation; it begins the moment the conversation ends and the coachee leaves your office to go out and do something differently than before. Depending on the situation, after a few days or weeks, be sure to check in to see how the person is doing on their commitments.  Here are a few examples of questions you can use to get the ball rolling as you follow up.

·         How is it working?

·         How would you summarize the work/effort so far?

·         What’s working well?  What are you thinking of altering?

G-ive Affirmation – Validation

The final stage of the coaching process is one that can be used anywhere during the coaching conversation, but especially at the end.  This is very important step and one that most people forget to do.  Take the time to Give Affirmation and acknowledge their hard work and desire to grow and change.  Your purpose here is to validate the goals, efforts, and plans that the person is putting forth and to validate the strengths or qualities that you see, think, or know will make them successful as they move forward.  These statements are a time for you to encourage, inspire, and motivate by saying things like:

·         I’ve seen progress in your goals. I want you to now take a second and point out how much progress you’ve seen in the past 3 weeks. 

·         You know, you’re really stepping up to the plate.  It takes a lot of courage to look at yourself and see how you can be more effective.  It’s a sign of a real leader.

When you Give Affirmation, be prepared to follow it with a brief pause.  People are not used to hearing good things about themselves, and for many people, receiving validation is actually an uncomfortable experience.

Putting it all Together to W.I.N. B.I.G.

You are now set to WIN BIG! Using this formula will not only help you succeed but more importantly, it will help you help others succeed. Once you have determined the coachability of a situation, focus on asking questions that create a dialogue that builds awareness and then move the person to action. To do that, use the W.I.N. B.I.G. model to help you wonder about root cause, investigate wants and name the possibilities. When you have narrowed down your possible solutions, build a plan, insure action, and give affirmation to the employee as they go out to be more successful. 

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

 

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