{"id":8192,"date":"2024-09-12T23:29:28","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T04:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/?p=8192"},"modified":"2024-09-12T23:29:29","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T04:29:29","slug":"is-your-clear-message-actually-confusing-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/12\/is-your-clear-message-actually-confusing-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Clear Message Actually Confusing Everyone?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

The mark of an effective leader is the ability to bring clarity into an otherwise cloudy or unclear situation.<\/span><\/h2>\n

But without realizing it, leaders will sometimes inject even more confusion by making statements that are spoken on an almost daily basis.<\/p>\n

Be aware of these common leadership statements, understand why they infuse so much confusion into your team, and then eradicate them from your vocabulary\u2026<\/p>\n

1. \u201cAt this time\u201d<\/h2>\n

This classic leadership trope is usually uttered as a benign way of hedging one\u2019s bets. It\u2019s a way that insecure leaders will try to cover all of their bases, so as to avoid sounding too committed and to giving them a way out.<\/p>\n

For example, when rumors of layoffs begin to swirl in an organization, it won\u2019t be long before someone speaks up in a staff meeting and asks the leader, \u201cAre there going to be layoffs?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d the leader might reply.\u00a0\u201cNot at this time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

So, does this mean there will be layoffs tomorrow?<\/p>\n

As soon as this phrase is uttered, the confusion factor on the team increases dramatically.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u201cAs soon as possible\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cCan you bring me an update report? I need it\u00a0as soon as possible.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, the leader who uttered this common statement is incensed that the report is not on his desk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I asked you to get me that report as soon as possible!\u201d they will growl.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d will reply the person with the assignment. \u201cThis\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>as soon as possible\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I wanted it\u00a0last week<\/em>\u2026\u201d You can see where the confusion grows.<\/p>\n

Bottom line; the phrase, \u201cAs soon as possible\u201d is open to wildly varying degrees of interpretation. If you want the report by noon Thursday, say so.<\/p>\n

3. \u201cYou need to improve\u201d<\/h2>\n

It is leadership malpractice to inform a member of the team that \u201cYou need to improve\u201d, without painting a vivid picture as to what such improvement looks like.<\/p>\n

Which parts of the performance need to improve? By how much? By when?<\/p>\n

Any valued team member will want to meet the leader\u2019s expectations. It\u2019s up to the leader to clarify what those expectations are.<\/p>\n

Effective leaders must shine the light of clarity into every situation.<\/p>\n

The day you eradicate these statements from your vocabulary will be the day your clarifying light begins to shine a bit brighter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mark of an effective leader is the ability to bring clarity into an otherwise cloudy or unclear situation. But without realizing it, leaders will sometimes inject even more confusion by making statements that are spoken on an almost daily basis. Be aware of these common leadership statements, understand why they infuse so much confusion…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6599,"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":[1091,1017,7],"tags":[594,23,984],"class_list":["post-8192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clarity","category-communication","category-leadership","tag-clarity","tag-communication","tag-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192","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=8192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8193,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions\/8193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}