Share Newsletter | Leading By Sharing | Episode 9 | Tuesday, June 5th, 2024
Enrich your words to shape your team
Effective leaders are intentional and purposeful in everything they do.
More than any other thing, they use their words carefully.
They understand the power of their words and make every effort to take advantage of it as they work to deliver on their mandate.
Most leaders fail to appreciate how much their words determine their success, paying attention to things that matter less and neglecting the way they communicate.
The truth is, when your team isn’t doing as well as you expect, you should look inwards.
Look at the mirror.
And more precisely, interrogate your ‘mouth.’
What have you been saying to them?
What’s the quality of the content of your words?
What have they been hearing from you?
Your team will not perform better than the quality of what you are saying to them.
What they hear from you is most likely what they do.
That’s because your words remain the instrument for shaping your team.
Jesus said that His disciples were “clean” by the words He spoke to them.
Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.
The words you speak to your team affect individual members and it should be aimed at ‘cleaning’ them.
To ‘clean’ a person is to address the shortcomings in their lives, thereby empowering them to do greater things.
If you aren’t mindful of this principle, you aren’t doing a great job as a leader.
If you aren’t approaching your leadership responsibility as such, you are dissipating energy and may end up frustrated.
You must start using your words to shape your team.
The quality of your words is the reason you are struggling to achieve great things with your team.
Your team’s lackluster performance is your fault, and not that of the members of your team.
At least, until you examine your words and certify that they have been appropriate.
If they had been though, your team would be in better shape and the results would show.
To ‘clean’ a person is to address the shortcomings in their lives, thereby empowering them to do greater things.
How your words ‘clean’ your team members
There are 4 things you can use your words to accomplish as you seek to shape your team members and bring out the best in them.
Use your words to teach principles.
Use your words to enforce discipline.
Use your words to effect correction.
Use your words to instruct on uprightness.
Teaching principles involve letting people know how things work. Almost everything worth doing in life is guided by one principle or the other. To achieve anything, it is easier to follow a relevant principle. When principles are neglected, work becomes a lot harder, and the achievement of results is uncertain.
How much of what you communicate to your people conveys principles?
To enforce discipline is to make clear that a behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. It is to convey disapproval to the offender. The degree of your disapproval should show in your choice of words. This is another purpose that you must use your words to serve. Don’t mince words about any team member's wrong and unbecoming behaviors when you need to.
Have you been intentional in the use of your words to enforce discipline?
Whenever your words are used to enforce discipline, it’s a good idea to correct them also. Let the offending party know what they have done wrong and also express what is the right thing to do. In other instances, where discipline isn’t involved, your words could still be used to correct your people in one way or another. This use of your words will be more predominant than its use to enforce discipline, except you have a bad team.
Are you a leader who focuses on correcting team members beyond expressing displeasure at their failings?
Also, a leader’s words must consist of instructions given from time to time to team members to get specific things done or take certain actions. Instructions from leaders aim at achieving specific results or getting things done.
Do your instructions promote upright behaviour in your team members?
The combination of these uses of the leader’s words determines how effective the leader will be in his quest to ‘clean’ the team members.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, [17] that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Effective use of the leader’s words, bearing in mind these 4 components, equips team members thoroughly to live up to expectations in the pursuit of the team’s goals.
By being more intentional in our communication, leaders can shape up their team members for enhanced performance.
You are known by your words
One of the things that leaders should worry about when the team isn’t pulling its weight is what value they are offering.
The poor or disappointing performance of your team may be a reflection of weakness in your capability and competence.
How is that, you may ask?
The leader’s words indeed have something to do with the team’s poor performance, but those words show who the leader is.
Leaders’ words reveal their makeup.
Like God, who cannot be differentiated from His word, a leader’s total person is expressed in the content of the words they speak.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
A leader’s use of words shows the quality of the content they have to offer.
No one can express a higher quality of words than they are made up of.
When a leader’s words are unable to shape the people who follow, they are weak, and that’s because the leader is weak in certain areas.
The leader’s weakness is also the result of the quality of words that she has received from another leader, since leaders are the product of other leaders.
It is through your words that the reality of what you have to offer will be appreciated.
When a leader’s words are unable to shape the people who follow, they are weak, and that’s because the leader is weak in certain areas.
What do your words contain?
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
There are two key things that your words must contain:
Grace and
Truth.
Words of grace answer the question, ‘What must I do?’
In every situation that’s the singular need each of us would have.
We want to know what to do to accomplish what we desire.
When you have access to what you must do, you have received the grace to do it.
And grace is the answer to every need!
So, do your words offer this kind of help, providing the grace required by your team members to get things done?
Words of truth answer the question, ‘Is this right?’
The point here is that we not only want to do what will solve our problem or help to get things done but also want to be sure it’s the right thing to do.
There are ways of accomplishing tasks and getting results but they may not be acceptable approaches.
For example, there are ways of becoming rich but such ways may be unacceptable based on our norms, values, and beliefs.
It is, therefore, important to operate based on truth.
The combination of knowing what to do and it being the right thing is great.
That’s what is expected of a leader.
For your words to get the job done, and be powerful for shaping your team, you must not only use them in the 4 ways earlier identified, but you must ensure that they are words of grace and truth.
Your words must help the people to do what is right and also get the results you desire.
Words of grace and truth build people in character and skill, empowering them also to achieve the sterling results you expect.
It can be a challenge for every leader, but it’s the guarantee of effectiveness and success.
Words of grace and truth build people in character and skill, empowering them also to achieve the sterling results you expect.
So, develop yourself along these lines, and be intentional about leveraging your words to produce greatness in your team.
END.
Leading by sharing for growth and a joyful experience.
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Better quality outcomes in 40 days!
If you are not happy with the quality of outcomes you are getting in your life, blame no one but yourself!
Look no further than you, but rather look inward.
The quality of what’s within you cannot produce outcomes of higher quality than you are experiencing.
To upgrade your outcomes, you must upgrade the content of your heart.
There’s no better content than the ‘kingdom of God.’
Yes, it’s time to put the kingdom of God within you!
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P.S. To learn more about the fast-track program, watch the video below.
A more excellent you in 40 days!
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Enjoy!
Olatunji Sobodu / Curator - [email protected]
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