Words matter when you’re a leader, and not all words are equally useful.
In fact, you should banish at least three from your leadership vocabulary.
Nobody wins when you use these words regularly, and they might be damaging your leadership without you even realizing it.
I end up using these words when I fail to take decisive actions.
I use these three words:
as substitutes for action,
as substitutes for specifics,
as substitutes for clarity.
Chances are you might as well.
Three Words to Banish Starting Now
So which three words trip up leader after leader and team after team? Here they are:
1. Someone
You know how this comes up. Someone should do something about that. Someone should fix that. Someone should step up.
Someone really means no one.
Here are some handy substitutes:
I will do something about it today.
I’m going to ask Josh to have that fixed by Friday.
Every single day, I’m going to ask five people to tackle the problem until someone steps up and says yes.
You can’t build the future on someone.
