Let me start with a confession: for many of us, our default style of communication is just that default. It’s what we gravitate toward without thinking. But when you move from being an individual contributor to a people-manager, those defaults can betray you.
If what you do habitually isn’t getting you the results you want if your team isn’t clicking, performance is flat, or relationships are strained the problem often isn’t your competence. It’s your intent. It’s how you show up, frame your conversations, listen, ask questions, and connect. And especially in that transition to managing people, you can’t leave these elements to chance.
The Leadership Pipeline: Recognising Where Many Trip
I’ll borrow from the Leadership Pipeline framework (Drotter, Charan, Noel) to call out a common trap. One of the earliest, and most perilous transitions is “managing self → managing others.”
The tricky part? We often get promoted because we excelled doing the work ourselves and we bring the same habits into leading others. But “doing” and “managing” require different time allocations, priorities, metrics, and values. If you don’t intentionally shift your mindset, your time, and your communication, you risk becoming a bottleneck as your leadership “pipeline” gets clogged.
Beyond that, the pipeline model reminds us that leadership transitions don’t just demand new skills or knowledge, but shifts in work values and time allocation. If your habitual communications or behaviors rest on a value schema suited to individual contribution (autonomy, execution, doing the “right” work), they may not serve you or your team well once your role changes.
The Language of Leadership: How Small Shifts Yield Big Results
Enter the SoundWaveⓇ model: a way to see how your habitual verbal strategies shape how you’re heard (and whether you’re heard well).
You might already use certain communication “voices” you assert your views, you correct, you advise, you probe but often you do so unconsciously, in autopilot. The problem is: others hear your voice based on your habitual pattern, not your intention.
SoundWaveⓇ offers nine verbal strategies:
- Articulate
- Advocate
- Advise
- Challenge
- Critique
- Correct
- Probe
- Inquire
- Diagnose
Each has a role. But if you over-index on “Advocate” or “Correct” because that’s comfortable, your communication becomes lopsided. You miss opportunities to inquire, probe, or invite participation which are critical when you lead people.
Small shifts in tone, question framing, the cadence of your dialogue—can change how your message lands, how safe people feel, how engaged they are. SoundWave suggests that expanding and balancing your repertoire can yield disproportionate positive impact.
Be Intentional, Not Reactive: From Habits to Conversations That Matter
So how do you move from autopilot to intentional leadership communication? Here are a few practical mindshifts and actions to guide you:
1. Pause, even when busy
When we’re overloaded, we revert to default communication (giving orders, correcting, lecturing). Intentionally slow down. Ask: What kind of conversation does this moment need?
2. Match the voice to the purpose
Need buy-in? Use inquire / probe. Making a decision? Use advocate / advise. Correcting? Use correct but soften with diagnose or probe first. This avoids the “hammer approach” where everything sounds like a command or critique.
3. Invite ownership and voice
Rather than telling, try asking: “What’s your take?” or “What might we be missing?” It shifts energy and subtly transfers responsibility.
4. Don’t skip the values shift
As the Pipeline reminds us: success isn’t just doing things differently; you must value managerial work. That means you explicitly carve out time for coaching, alignment, growth conversations—not just delivery or firefighting.
5. Reflect and calibrate
Try a quick 1–2 question “post-meeting audit”: “Which voice did I lean on? Did I invite dialogue or just issue directives? What could I have probed more?” Over time, you’ll expand your repertoire.
What You’ll Gain When You Lead with Intention
- Stronger connection: people feel seen, heard, valued—not just managed.
- Reduced resistance: less pushback when you tap into others’ insight or agency.
- Clarity and alignment: purposeful conversations clear misalignment before it becomes conflict.
- Leadership pipeline that flows: people develop—not because they guess what you want, but because you guide them intentionally.
If what you’ve done before hasn’t yielded the results you hoped, or feels stuck especially now that you’re managing people know this: the gap isn’t just in doing more or doing better. It’s in how you communicate, how you invite, how you connect.
And that shift, that intentional posture, often separates great managers from good ones.
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