The Language of Leadership – Joel Schwartzberg

The Language of Leadership by Joel Schwartzberg was released in July 2021 and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

The book provides guidance on how to be an effective leader by improving communication skills, including how to engage and inspire a team, how to use language to build trust and credibility, and how to develop a leadership mindset.

The book draws on personal experience and research to provide practical advice for anyone looking to improve their leadership skills.

The Dynamic Duo: Purpose and Power

Purpose is the compelling reason an idea has value and should be activated. It inspires a team because it gives them a meaningful cause to align with and motivation to commit.

Purpose often manifests in language dealing with goals and strategy and is frequently referred to as the “why.”

Realism/idealism transition

Here are examples of a realism/idealism transition:

• “While we need to keep one eye on today’s challenges, the other should be squarely focused on our goals for the remainder of this year and beyond. That’s how we keep moving ahead and understanding where we need to be.”
• “We will inevitably make mistakes and may not always meet our objectives, but taking risks and thinking big are critically important to our success, so I encourage you to aim high. Remember, every moment of failure is also a moment of learning.”

The Language of Listening

Admired executives are typically strong listeners because they recognize that their teams want to both listen to and be heard by their leaders.

But there’s a big difference between passively hearing your team and actively listening to them, and since communications is very often a two-way street, listening to your team is a crucial component of the language of leadership.

Shaming questions

Try to avoid asking questions in public that are challenging, are potentially shaming, or reveal pessimism. Because you’re their leader and not their colleague, your skepticism—and its impact—carries extra weight. Examples of potentially shaming questions:

“How much will this cost?”

“But what happens if . . .?”

“Why didn’t you consider . . .?”

If they’re vital concerns, you can always discuss them privately later.

Purpose and power part 2

The following are three examples of purpose-driven statements:

1. “The data demonstrates that doubling down on our awareness campaign will enable us to beat last year’s revenue forecast.”
2. “Adopting this strategy will enable us to protect vulnerable children in ways we never have before.”
3. “This product will enable people to save thousands of dollars every year and live healthier lives.”

To be clear, power doesn’t mean displaying aggression or dominance—nor is it gender-specific. It merely means you stand behind what you assert. Leaders can communicate messages of kindness and empathy as powerfully as they convey messages of accountability and ambition.

Relaying Bad News

Sharing bad news with your team—like layoffs, department shutdowns, and terminations—is among the most difficult and stressful communications you can make. But the fundamental guidance for delivering unwelcome information is the same for leaders and their teams as it is for doctors and their patients: be honest, direct, and concise.

Balancing Realism and Idealism

One of a leader’s most essential—and tricky—communication responsibilities is balancing realism and idealism. You want your language to be pragmatic but also visionary. You want to focus on today’s challenges as well as tomorrow’s hopes.

Conveying realistic messages is crucial to developing trust. Conveying idealistic messages is crucial to creating inspiration. But the peril of overdoing idealism is that you might overpromise or seem tone-deaf to reality, and the peril of overdoing realism is that you may be limiting your projection of ambition and vision.

Question Types

Strategic questions:

“What do you aim to achieve?”

“How can we apply that approach throughout the company?”

Recognition questions:

“Who helped you with this project?”

“How did you come up with the idea?”

Helpful questions:

“What can I do to help?”

“What do you need to take your project to the next level?”

When a leader gives bad news

• Avoid ambiguity as much as possible. Employees need and deserve facts from their leaders, not speculation. Ambiguity also projects indecision and breeds fear instead of understanding.
• Be careful not to overpromise. Unfulfilled assurances and possibilities can ultimately hurt your credibility.
• Consider if you might be softening a message or making it more equivocal to make yourself—the communicator—feel more comfortable.
• Use simple and natural language, not a script, to ensure you sound authentic and not like a press release. This is a critical time to be human.

Honoring a Person

For a leader, honoring an individual involves more than simply ticking off a list of laudable accomplishments. It requires sharing the honoree’s legacy—the continuing impact of their contribution to the brand, the work, the workplace, the field, or the industry.

• Curate only the most relevant and specific achievements of the honoree.
• Call out the honoree’s personal qualities or competencies that played a significant role in producing those outcomes.
• Share personal stories or experiences you had with the person, even if minor.
• Deliver your comments directly to the honoree using second-person language (“you”) versus third-person language (“he/she/they”).
• Use concise notes in the form of prompts versus complete sentences.

The Rule of Three

There’s something instantly engaging about communicating in patterns of three, commonly called the rule of three. This tactic is also called a tricolon.

Tricolons mirror the engaging rhythm of a song or poem, and many leaders have used them with resonating effect.

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address alone contains two tricolons:

• . . . We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.
• . . . Government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Or even in corporate addresses:

• GM’s vision is a world with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.

The rule of three isn’t just a flowery rhetorical device—it effectively draws people in.

Basic listening tips

• Always face speakers and maintain eye contact. In a virtual meeting, look into the camera’s eye.
• Demonstrate you’re listening by nodding. Nodding is more effective than smiling because it says, “I’m buying what you’re selling.”
• Don’t use listening time as an opportunity to plan what you’re going to say next. Misunderstanding a question or request can damage credibility and trust.
• Avoid interrupting members of your team or finishing their sentences. That’s universally rude.
• Reflect questions and concerns back to the speaker before offering your perspective or proposing a solution.
• Keep an open mind and resist the urge to defend. Focus on considering your team’s perspective.

Let Me Ask You a Question

In the dialogue between leaders and their teams, productive listening (and learning) can be boosted when a leader asks probing questions. The question represents a curiosity—as all well-intended questions do—but it’s also an opportunity for a leader to demonstrate admirable qualities including concern, awareness, and eagerness to learn.

Here are a variety of question types that serve the double purpose of gathering useful information from your team and reflecting your appreciation of their perspective.

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