Leadership Megaphone
Congratulations and welcome to your role as a leader. Along with your title and responsibilities you also received your very own leadership megaphone. You may choose not to use it, but others will. For this reason your leadership megaphone comes with a warning label that reads, “Caution. You’re not in charge of how others use this instrument to broadcast their understanding of your message.”
How the Leader’s Megaphone Works
Your statements will be broadcast far and wide. At times you will be mis-quoted, mis-understood, or interpreted in ways you never intended. Sometimes you’ll hear about these misunderstandings and you’ll have an opportunity to set things right before too much damage is done. Other times, you’ll think everyone heard, understood and interpreted you correctly, until one or more people act in ways that make it clear your message was misunderstood. Sometimes these misinformed actions and their consequences are benign. Sometimes they’re not.
Let’s consider what happened when Charlie, a high tech vice president, innocently uttered a few words under his breath, not knowing his leadership megaphone was nearby on full volume.
Charlie was touring customers through one of the company’s assembly plants. He noted the assembly technicians were using manual screw drivers. Charlie quietly muttered to himself “Wouldn’t it be easier and more efficient if they used electronic screwdrivers?” The next week, Charlie toured the plant again. Each and every assembly tech was using an electronic screwdriver. When he asked what happened, the same engineer who ran the previous tour responded proudly, “You said you wanted everyone to use electronic screwdrivers, so we ordered them the next day.” Charlie’s leadership megaphone was working in accordance with the warning label.
This is a benign example. The sole cost was money spent, and the outcome may indeed have been greater efficiency. The more important outcome was what Charlie learned and put into practice. He had to be more intentional about his communications and could no longer think-out-loud, before thinking silently about the unintended consequences of his words.
Wise Use Instructions for Your Leader’s Megaphone
The following principles and guidelines will help you use your leadership megaphone wisely.
- When in doubt, wait
- You can say something later, but once said you can’t take it back
- Ask “How might my words be misinterpreted?” before you speak
- Communicate with intention by identifying
- The desired outcome
- The message and emotional tone that will achieve the desired outcome
- Minimize your words
- Fewer words leave less room for misinterpretation
On that last point, a wise CEO was being introduced to speak at a event I was attending. I asked what he was going to talk about. He said, “Very little”, so I asked “Why?”
Anything I have to say, can be said in 3 minutes, which is about how long people listen attentively. After that, people are half listening and my message may well be taken out of context or misinterpreted.
He got up, spoke for 3 minutes and sat back down.