Just Say It

Some of the best leadership advice I know is surprising in its simplicity and elegance.

In all my years of leadership development, there is one piece of advice that I give more frequently than any other. It’s simple. It’s provocative. And, I’ve seen it work wonders in countless complex situations: 

Just say it. 

If you want to get your team’s input, but you aren’t confident you can incorporate every piece of it and fear they’ll be demotivated: just say it.

If you are trying to collaborate more proactively with your peers after you received developmental feedback: just say it.

It applies on personal matters too. If you are trying to respond to your best friend’s ask to call more, but you notice that you’re forgetting frequently: just say that too.

Often, we want the perfect plan to manage through a situation. Maybe if I do A, then B, then C, then talk about D - it will drive the outcome I want without the downsides I fear. We try to mastermind all the right moves - choreographing all the way to the end.

Yet, often, there is not a perfect set of moves. There’s just the messy reality of what we hope to achieve, what we’re noticing is getting in the way, and our noble attempts to navigate the waters. 

And so, instead of playing the mastermind who makes it all magically and invisibly happen, we open ourselves up. We say what we’re hoping to accomplish. We say what’s getting in the way. We say what we’re afraid of. We say how we hope to be received by others.   

This is all part of managing the narrative that other people are telling themselves. Without you “just saying it”, they are free to interpret your actions through their lens. Your failure to take input means that you don’t care. Your attempts to collaborate with peers look suspicious and political. And, your failure to call your best friend means that you don’t care. By “just saying it”, on the other hand, you invite others into a little sliver of your internal world. They are able to better understand your actions because you have voiced what’s behind it: your intentions, hesitations, fears, hopes, and rationale.

The impact is that you no longer carry the burden of masterminding the outcomes - and your counterparties are also able to transact on a wider berth of what’s true. You’re able to bring the fullness of the situation into the room collectively.

To be fair, it takes a certain amount of psychological safety to be able to share your internal motivations and fears. And, there are certainly times when confidentiality delimits us from sharing everything. But, time and again, I notice that executives are relieved to just be honest with more of what they’re thinking instead of magically navigating a perfect path through.

And so, when in doubt, experiment with the best piece of management advice I know: Just say it. 

This post was originally published on Meredith’s Substack, The Intentional.