3 Tiny Words to Eliminate to become a powerful, confident leader
Imagine emailing your staff and getting the immediate result you wanted.
Picture holding a meeting where your ideas are respected and your words are understood.
Envision yourself saying exactly what you mean with no fluff, holding intelligent, considerate conversations, and resting assured that you speak, write, type, and text exactly what you mean.
What an amazing feeling!
If this seems like a far off fantasy, you're actually not alone.
It's super common, in fact, for women to embody a lackluster sense of confidence around communication. Even women in leadership roles, or as I like to call them, bosses.
Last week I shared a post where I highlighted 10 powerful paradigm shifts that lead to growth and freedom. After more than ten years of small business ownership, I had to share these transformational shifts because they've allowed me to live and lead unapologetically.
Because covering 10 paradigm shifts in depth is a lot for one post, I'm going to be diving in with each one individually, adding more details and examples.
Now if you, like me, have a million things going on in your family and your business life, and you wish that everyone on whom you depend could detangle and decipher the intricate thoughts in your mind and know exactly what you want them to do, I feel you sister!!
But alas, I have not cracked the code on mind-reading communication.
Not yet anyway.
I have, however, identified three teeny, tiny little words that when eliminated from your communication, both written and spoken, make you a much clearer, more confident communicator.
Which leads to a more grounded and powerful boss.
And no matter where you're the boss, removing these words from your vocabulary entirely will catapult your confidence to new levels!
JUST
This sneaky little bugger seems to poke its one-syllable self into the conversation at exactly the moments when you don't want its dull, lukewarm presence.
Let me elaborate with a few examples:
You've given your assistant a deadline, and he has not completed the task due yesterday. You want to be patient and give him grace (who know's what's going on in his life anyway), but for gosh sake, you needed that done and you needed it done a day ago!
So you grab your phone, open a text message and start typing,
"Hey Max. I'm just checking in to see how the project is coming. I just want to see where you're at since it needed to be completed yesterday."
Aww. That's so nice. You're just checking in. You just wanted to see. How considerate!
But really I know you're fuming inside, and you want to violently jab the touchscreen on your phone, "WTF, Max. That GD thing was due yesterday and I'm running this company and now I'm running a homeschool and it's a pandemic and I still manage to get my shit done on time and feed everyone and pay the bills and you literally had one job to do all week."
Now, deep breath. I feel you.
I want to suggest that you consider how it would feel to send the original text and simply eliminate the powerless little adverb, just:
"Hey Max. I'm checking in to see how the project is coming. I want to see where you're at since it needed to be completed yesterday."
Well damn.
Read that out loud a few times!
Say it with a straight face.
You're not playin' with that message, and you're also maintaining an appropriate level of respect: respect for you, respect for Max, respect for the project, respect for the deadline, and respect for everyone's time.
Eliminating "just" really is quite simple, yet not necessarily easy.
Start to notice where "just" shows up in your communication:
"Can you stay a few minutes? I just want to give you some feedback."
"I just want to let you know your bill is past due."
"I'm emailing to just check if our meeting is still on."
Eliminating this little filler of a word will ground and focus you so you can stay on track and confident in your communication and leadership.
RIGHT
Any fellow fitness and yoga entrepreneurs out there may be thinking, "well how the heck am I going to tell my students to move?"
Rest assured, I don't mean the opposite of left 😉
The right I'm encouraging you to eliminate is the right that slips in when you've just said something downright epic. To downplay your earth shattering superpower you then utter ... right?
Right sounds conversational.
Right feels friendly.
And right actually undermines your powerful stance by questioning it.
"Our annual revenue goal is $1 million ... right?"
Or...
"Our annual revenue goal is $1 million."
Here's another:
"While you're lying here in savasana, you know this is the best you've felt all day ... right?"
Reaplace it with:
"While you're lying here in savasana, you know this is the best you've felt all day ."
And one more to drive it on home:
"Part of your job is to maintain a class average of 30 paying students in every class you teach ... right?"
If you set the expectation, then set the expectation:
"Part of your job is to maintain a class average of 30 paying students in every class you teach."
When I first became aware that I was saying right more than necessary, I thought I was doing it to sound cool and casual.
Not until I consciously attempted to stop saying it did I realize how my little rights were apologizing for the strong points I wanted to convey.
Dropping right from your vocabulary will do a couple of things:
Number 1: It will make you uncomfortable. Uncomfortable to be telling someone how it is rather than asking his permission.
Number 2: It'll encourage you to ask yourself if you really mean what you're saying. If you do, lean into that power and don't deflate it with right.
BUT
Similarly to it's cousin right, but has the ability to completely negate a point you're trying to make. When you use the word but in a sentence, it often succeeds a comma and opposes the previous phrase.
Here's a benign example:
The weather's nice now, but it's going to be stormy later.
And another:
That dress looks great on you, but I actually think you should wear pants.
And one more for good measure:
You're a great teacher, but you really need to work on your ability to connect outside of the class.
Hear my clearly: you absolutely may string two thoughts together in the same sentence. My hang up with but is that it allows us to be too wordy, cumbersome, and indirect.
And frankly, I think using but can be cowardly.
Let's take that third example of the teacher who's not connected. The but in that sentence essentially erases the "you're a great teacher" phrase.
Do you really think the teacher is great? Or are you simply uttering that warm up to soften the necessary meat of your message, that you really need to work on your ability to connect outside of the class.
Listen, the whole title of this post enticed you because you want to become a powerful, confident leader. Being kind and clear, as I wrote about in the paradigm shift post does not mean you have to beat around the bush; rather, it means to be direct, concise, and respectful.
Now what if you really do need to strong two phrases together because they both mean something important? What if that teaches does have mad skills in some ways but legitimately needs to connect more effectively?
Well ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming the good conjunction of the north, AND.
Ohhhh and. You solve so many problems for us.
"You're a great teacher and you really need to work on your ability to connect outside of the class."
"That dress looks great on you, and I actually think you should wear pants."
"The weather's nice now, and it's going to be stormy later."
One simple way I like to think about and vs. but is like addition vs. subtraction: and adds while but takes away.
Perhaps you stumbled on this post because you're having trouble being taken seriously. Or you get frustrated because you can't get your point across. Or even more still, you know you have valuable information to share and you're not grounded and confident in your delivery.
Your content isn't complicated, and it's not unkind nor unclear.
Go back and look at some past emails for any justs that surface.
Tune in with your words next time you're holding a meeting and tap into your self control when the rights and the buts start to surface.
It's better to feel uncomfortable for a moment and swallow that right than turn your killer statement into a popularity poll.
By now you full well know that growth is uncomfortable. And honing the communication skills to show up as a powerful, confident leader can feel uneasy and unnatural when you first begin.
AND ... (see what I did there?!)
Putting in this intentional effort is so totally worth it!