{"id":6143,"date":"2018-06-04T21:14:21","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T02:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=6143"},"modified":"2018-06-04T21:14:21","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T02:14:21","slug":"3-weak-phrases-you-should-drop-from-your-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/04\/3-weak-phrases-you-should-drop-from-your-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Weak Phrases You Should Drop From Your Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can tell a lot about a leader by what they say.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes you can tell even more by what they don\u2019t<\/u> say.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you listen carefully, you\u2019ll discover that there are some words and phrases that just never pop up when effective leaders speak.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do any of these appear in your own leadership communication?<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. At this time\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Think about it.<\/p>\n

When a leader is asked, \u201cWill there be layoffs at the company?\u201d what does it mean if a leader responds by saying, \u201cNot at this time\u201d?<\/p>\n

The leader is essentially saying, \u201cThere will be no layoffs today, but there could be tomorrow.\u201d Or perhaps there really will be no layoffs. In other words, adding \u201cAt this time\u201d to any leadership announcement renders it meaningless.<\/p>\n

Take the \u201cAt this time\u201d out of your leadership vocabulary.<\/p>\n

2. If this is true\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This one is being heard far too often today.<\/p>\n

A leader will hear a rumor or allegation against a member of the team, and rather than searching for truth will say, \u201cJohnson, if these allegations I\u2019m hearing about you are true, then I have choice but to let you go\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Our culture today has replaced fact-based decision making for \u201callegation-based\u201d decision making. This is simply weak leadership.<\/p>\n

And you can spot it the moment a leader utters the phrase, \u201cIf this is true\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

3. People are saying\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Be wary of the opinions that are formed or the decisions that are made based on the \u201cPeople are saying\u201d reasoning.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are saying we need to change our product.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are saying we should lower our prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are saying we should add a traditional service in our church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each of these statements begs the question, \u201cWhat people?\u201d \u201cWho are these people saying these things?\u201d<\/p>\n

By all means, keep your eyes and ears open for feedback from a variety of sources. But remember that \u201cPeople are saying\u201d is the beginning<\/u>\u00a0of a decision making process; it\u2019s far from the end of that process.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the point. When you\u2019re a leader, you know that people listen to your every word.<\/p>\n

So choose your words carefully.<\/p>\n

And pay as much attention to the words and phrases you don\u2019t say, as you do to the words you do say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can tell a lot about a leader by what they say. Sometimes you can tell even more by what they don\u2019t say. If you listen carefully, you\u2019ll discover that there are some words and phrases that just never pop up when effective leaders speak. Do any of these appear in your own leadership communication?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[738,7,581,585],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-effectiveness-2","category-leadership","category-self-assessment","category-wisdom-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6143"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6147,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143\/revisions\/6147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}