Say Less, Lead More
Three easy phrases to add to your leadership, right now.
We are so conditioned to define success by “being right”. It feels good, so we keep seeking it out to get that rush of validation and sense of safety. From early education, we are acutely aware of who knows the right answer in class and want to be that person. In the workplace we are given rewards, promotions and recognition against various degrees of this same metric - knowing the most things, achieving the most impact, being “right” the most.
It makes sense then that leaders think more “being right” is the way: If I got here by being right & knowing things, then more of that leads to more wins? Go me!
But hang on a second - let’s reverse engineer that conditioning. In school - do the best teachers tell us the answer, or create the condition for us to arrive on our own? At work, who got out of the way so that we could achieve ourselves? If you’ve had a leader who did not do this, or who took credit for themselves, how did that feel? “Being right” is armor* - it is self-protecting, self-fulfilling, and it sure gets heavy if your entire success, reputation, and sense of value is derived from having to know everything.
What if instead of the model we’ve been shown (where doing / knowing / performing = leadership), we start to practice doing / knowing / saying LESS? And in so doing, serve ourselves and our teams better?
Here are three easy “say less” phrases to start practicing right now - in your life, in your friendships, and at work - whether you lead people directly or not. Along with each phrase is some of the why, the what’s in it for you to help you along the change curve.
#1) I don’t know - three simple words that are so hard to say, particularly when you feel the mantle of responsibility. Old conditioning works against us on this one - and yet, paradoxically when we say this aloud, it tends to build more trust, not less**.
Adds - vulnerability, humility & honesty not just in the words, but also demonstrated in your own behavior. Also cultivates relationships & relatedness - there is power in your team seeing you just as they often feel: a real, doing-your-best human.
Enables - curiosity, trust, contributions. What if someone else DOES know! It gives your team permission to show their brilliance! And if no one jumps in, the next easy question is “how might we find out?”
Protects against - your own ego. If you continue to demonstrate all of what you know, your team is being trained to ask for more of that - a self-fulfilling loop that makes you feel good now, but undermines capability long term.
#2) What do you think? - a powerful follow up to the above, and effective for coaching and development as a stand alone. Leaders get asked for advice a lot - and our conditioning & wanting to be right-ness is happy to step in. But what if we ask our teams for their wisdom, their right-ness instead?
Adds - curiosity, collaboration and understanding in your leadership approach.
Enables - creative thinking, validation of others, diversity of thought and perspective. Development of those capabilities helps your team become advisors and critical thinkers. Allows you to assess current capability and see growth over time.
Protects against - burnout and mental load in self, protects teams against acquiescence and permission-seeking with you and with other collaborators.
Side benefit - it is also a useful escape hatch when, in actual fact, you don’t know or need a minute to think, but you don’t have to admit it! (for those of us still working on #1)
#3) I need help - so many leaders come with big ideas and all the answers. They know what they want, how they want it done, and they shut down everything (and everyone) else. They’ve already done the heavy lifting - sometimes purely to show their own brilliance, sometimes believing this is in service to busy teams, as in, I’m not asking for that much help because I’ve already thought it all through! (Sounds and feels like control…) I want to see more leaders come with an idea, a question, a hypothesis - and say: I have this idea and I need your help to determine what to do next.
Adds - vulnerability, honesty, humanity - and it invites collaboration.
Enables - trust, shared ownership, creativity, diversity of solutions.
Protects against - blind spots, risk, competing priorities.
There’s a paradox here: we tend to think this approach saves time, however, asking for help and slowing down can and does prevent unexpected outcomes or tradeoffs, which in turn prevents wasted effort and helps teams do higher quality work.
All three of these have a multiplier impact: role modeling the behaviors as the leader encourages the same behavior through and across the team. You are building advisors and critical thinkers. You are threading collaboration and honesty into your cultural fabric. Not only will the team rise to this for you, they will do it with their clients and cross-functional collaborators.
Daly Dose of real talk - be the leader you wish you had. There are still plenty of places for you to know and to be right - releasing a few for the betterment of the many is well worth doing. It can all start with you, and it can change everything.
Reference & Citations:
*Being Right as armored leadership - Brené Brown, Dare to Lead - pages 76-114; also podcast episode April 5, 2021
**The Power of “I Don’t Know” - David Burkus, Psychology Today
On asking for help - HBR On Leadership podcast, episode 148: Asking for Help When Others Look to You for Answers
