Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

by L. David Marquet

The limitation of many of these programs is that they attempt to patch over problems in an inherently broken structure, or playbook. In essence, they encourage us to run the old plays better, more effectively, and in some cases replace them with new plays—but the overall playbook of leadership and language remains intact. The result is that leaders unwittingly sabotage their efforts to create better workplaces by using automatic and programmed language patterns that stem from the Industrial Revolution, stifling the emergence of any true red-blue approach. They don’t know they are doing it and don’t see the connection between the leadership plays they are used to relying on and the behaviors at work.