Leadership is Language Quotes

“But leadership is about making the lives of others easier, not blaming them. Leadership is about the hard work of taking responsibility for how our actions and words affect the lives of others.”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“Something else I learned was that waiting for people to prove themselves in order for me to trust them was backward. I needed to entrust people with authority and autonomy in order to give them the opportunity to prove themselves.”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“COLLABORATE play are to broaden our perspectives, embrace variability, and make visible the collective knowledge, thoughts, and ideas of the group.”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“The team relies on the leader either to preplan the length of the redwork and the moment of exiting redwork or to spontaneously call a time-out during a redwork period, in essence, an audible when needed.”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“Since people who are engaged in redwork often have a performance (prove or protect) mindset, it is difficult for them to call time-out on themselves.”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“There were plenty of signs that my view was distorted—had I been willing to see them. People would hesitantly offer a good idea every now and then. Occasionally, they would take smart, decisive action without my direction. Once in a while, I would make a mistake, directing my team in a way that wasn’t optimal or was just plain wrong. In these scenarios, my subordinates would comply with bad orders, despite all my lectures to speak up if they ever saw a problem. Afterward, when things went off the rails, they would shrug and say they were just doing what they’d been told. In response, I would double down on giving clear, concise, and correct orders.”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“System 2 thinking asks questions like: “What are we missing?” “How might this go wrong?” “If we do this and it ends up going south, what would be the most likely culprit?”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“The next time you have a problem at your company, think about this: Is this simply a problem in execution, or was there a decision in the past, perhaps the distant past, that set us down the path where this operational problem was more likely to happen? Is the problem rooted in faulty bluework in the past?”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“In his book Superminds, MIT professor Thomas Malone probes what makes groups smarter than individuals. He found that one of the factors is the degree to which the words are evenly distributed among the participants. The other two factors Professor Malone attributes the superior group intelligence to are the social intelligence of the members of the group and the proportion of women in the group.”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“Leaders say these things to assuage their conscience. When things go wrong, they can blame others for not speaking up despite the leader’s encouragement to do so. But leadership is about making the lives of others easier, not blaming them. Leadership is about the hard work of taking responsibility for how our actions and words affect the lives of others.”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“Operating this way—conforming to hierarchical roles, maintaining emotional distance from others, avoiding vulnerability at all costs—is lonely and unfulfilling.”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“In brainstorming, I would like as many different ideas as possible. In decision-making, I would like a wide range of options. In determining the truth, I would like to hear different perspectives.”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

“As leaders, the way to get out of the cajole, manipulate, plead, and hope for certain behaviors game is to focus on immediate, positive, and certain psychological rewards after we observe the behaviors that are useful and effective in the business.”
― L. David Marquet, Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't