The Four-Letter Word Leaders Need to Stop Saying Now

Cassie was explaining the complexity of her current project to her supervisor.  She was managing a challenging team member, a non-responsive executive sponsor, and a new piece of presentation software—that only Cassie knew how to run.  The project was taking additional time because of challenges with the software and there was a backlog in IT.  In response to Cassie’s frustration her leader said, “Well, just run the data from the old software and upload it to the new system.”  Their conversation ended.

Just. Just? Just!  Instead of empathy, Cassie felt dismissed.  Instead of brainstorming and problem solving, Cassie got minimizing.  Instead of partnership, Cassie got a useless solution to navigate the complexities and political intricacies of her situation. 

By now you have guessed—the four-letter word I believe needs to be removed from leadership vocabulary is the word “just.”  It seems like a small thing.  The leader thought she was helping Cassie.  Cassie needed a solution and the leader was being solution oriented.  After all, isn’t that a big part of the leader’s job—finding a solution?

What is wrong with “just?”

Most leaders will not recognize this as a troubling moment.  The leader listened to Cassie and she gave Cassie a solution.  As a leader she helped her employee move forward.  She may even feel proud and confident that she was so quick and efficient in coming up with a solution.  Leaders are often rewarded for quick thinking, quick problem solving, and getting things done efficiently.  However, in this moment, the leader may have moved the project forward, but she set her relationship with Cassie back.

As an employee, Cassie was coming to her leader for a couple of reasons:

1) She was having challenges that her leader should be able to help her navigate.

2) She was letting her leader know that the project was not going as planned and there might be fallout from the delay.

When her leader suggested a workaround that would only be a temporary solution, Cassie felt her concerns had fallen on deaf ears. 

In the sentence “just do ‘X’” the meaning of the word “just” is the equivalent of saying “simply do X.”  This phrase screams of condescension.  The oversimplified solution made Cassie feel that her skills, work, and time were not valued.  Furthermore, could she trust that her leader would have her back if something went awry?  She felt abandoned.

Beyond Cassie’s trust for her leader and her feelings about her work, a significant by-product of this conversation is a temporary, sub-optimal business solution.

Changing the “just” conversation

So how could Cassie’s leader have handled this differently?  Cassie’s leader could have still given the same suggestion, but she should have acknowledged that this was a step in a larger plan.  For example, she could have said, “Cassie, in the interest of keeping the project going, go ahead and pull the data from the old system.  I am concerned that the executive sponsor is not responding—let me dig into that for you.  In the meantime, please put in an urgent request to IT and copy me on the email.  Also, set some time with me tomorrow to go over some options for working with the difficult employee.”  This response would have acknowledged all the complexities of Cassie’s situation and would have sent a clear signal to her that her leader was willing to partner to resolve the situation.  This second scenario would have required much more commitment on the part of the leader.

How do we help leaders become committed problem solvers and stop using oversimplified, drive-by solutions?  Here are a few thoughts on making that happen.

1. Stop incentivizing the “just” conversation and results

Take a hard look at how you promote, reward, and train leaders.  Do you reward the quick fix?  Do you promote those who get the fastest results?  If so, adjust your incentive plans and hiring practices. 

On an even more basic level—what praise do leaders receive?  Do you often praise how much work gets done?  How many times projects are done early? 

Do you expect leaders to be good coaches?  Do you reward them for being good developers of people?  Do you reward leaders for quality solutions to complex problems?  Do you provide your leaders with opportunities to learn strategic thinking, and practice problem-solving and coaching?

2. Examine your culture around leadership

What kind of role models are in your current leadership?  Are there examples of other leaders who have rose through the ranks that were able to do so by cutting corners or not attending to employees?  Do company leaders have an employee focus?  Do you keep people in leadership roles even though they are clearly not people focused?

3. Consider the workload of leaders

Are your leaders “working leaders?”  In other words, did you give them a title and a team, but still expect them to do some (or all) the work they used to do as an individual contributor?  Leaders need time to lead.  They need to have time to listen to employees, problem solve, coach, and communicate.  Organizations set leaders up for failure when they do not allow a clean transition to leadership.

Measure the leadership behaviors you need

The way that your leaders behave and treat employees is heavily influenced by your incentive systems and your culture.  If organizations want leaders who listen, who are thoughtful, who not only get results, but get quality results, they need to reward:

• Connection with employees
• Coaching behaviors
• Ability to leverage diverse voices on a team
• Quality results rather than quantity

It is easy to measure quantity results. The items listed above are much harder to measure, but here are a few ideas:

• Insist that leaders hold consistent 1:1 meetings with employees and measure this by both leader self-report and reporting by employees.  Ask employees if they feel they are listened to, if they feel their ideas are considered, and if they feel that their leader has their back.
• Implement a coaching philosophy and measure success by quarterly self-report and employee reported measures.  Coaching elevates the team and the individual employee.  Incentivize leaders who coach employees who are eventually promoted (even if it is into another area of the company).  These are the leaders who are filling your leader pipeline.  Examine the quality of the team’s work as a whole and incentivize quality of product as delivered by the team.
• Consider the size and scope of projects rather than the number of projects when it comes to bonuses and other incentives.  Create a rubric that lays out scope, risk, team size, etc.  Place higher emphasis on leading broader, more complex projects vs. multiple smaller ones.

By being thoughtful in the way that we think about leadership and the influence of our organizational systems on leaders we can reduce the basic “just” conversation, avoid the “easy button” solution and lessen the risk of frustrating employees.

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