[January 9, 2016] Ever hear of the fable about how a group of frogs taught humans a good lesson about what we say? It’s a good one and a story my mom used to tell me whenever I got into trouble with my big mouth. In retrospect my mother was giving me advice on how to be a better person. Be careful what you say, she would tell me over and over again.
This may seem rather obvious at first glance but leaders always seem to say the wrong thing, often at the wrong time. No surprise here; they are required to be in constant communication with others and are giving guidance such that it should not be too surprising that something will be said unintentionally perhaps that causes a problem.
There’s an old English language children’s rhyme that says, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me.” It’s an attempt to persuade a child victim of name-calling to ignore the taunt. There’s good intent here but words do harm and thus care in what we say is most important, especially for a leader.
What we say can be taken out of context or twisted and we can expect it to be that way. Thus, care should be exercised in the words we chose to communicate ideas, decisions, feelings, etc. Senior leaders are most often ridiculed and criticized for what they say or what they don’t say about a particular topic. That is part of being a leader; the best leaders chose their words carefully and a good habit can be developed if practiced sufficiently.
Words do have impact; good and bad. Last month a U.S. Congressman unleashed on the Attorney General in a rant in response to a peculiar speech she had made a day earlier. The AG had said her office would take a more aggressive approach to those spewing anti-Muslim rhetoric.1 He said, “Go ahead and prosecute me. I dare you.” Shortly thereafter the AG clarified her comments and her office will not take a more aggressive approach to restricting free speech.
Words matter. Oh, the fable about the group of frogs. It went something like this:
A group of frogs were traveling through the woods and two of them fell into a deep pit. When the other frogs saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs they were as good as dead. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed and gave up. He fell down and died. The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, “Did you not hear us?” The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.2
There are two leadership lessons to be learned from this:
- Words carry the power of life and death. Encouragement can help someone up and save them when they are down. Likewise, a destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them.
- It is easy to chose words of discouragement and destructiveness but difficult to choose the right words to encourage.
Leaders need to be careful what they say; as their words can have impact beyond their intent.
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- http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/12/05/former-congressman-unleashes-on-attorney-general-in-rant-against-islam-go-ahead-and-prosecute-me-i-dare-you/
- https://lifelessons4u.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/be-careful-of-what-you-say/