A leader’s primary job is to cause desired outcomes, outcomes that are not predictable given the usual drift of day-to-day business. Outcomes that will not occur without the intervention of a leader.
Which means as a leader you cannot settle for speaking equivocally and at the same time expect the outcomes you want, for example:
- Somebody needs to …
- Why don’t they…?
- We ought to…
- We should…
Instead, as a leader you will be able to get more of the outcomes you want by mastering conversations for action by making requests to a specific person to do a particular thing/stop doing a particular thing, so as to produce a specific outcome, in a specific period of time.
In other words, shift from speaking about things…our thoughts feeling and opinions, and start speaking for the outcomes that are wanted and needed to forward mission, values and intentions.