Language Shapes Team Success
Rethink traditional leadership to empower your team’s voice and decision-making.
It's easy to assume that as a leader, your job is to decide and direct. But what happens when those decisions aren’t challenged, even when they are clearly bad?
When people don’t feel safe speaking up, organizations lose creativity, morale suffers, and mistakes multiply. As someone who’s experienced this firsthand, I can tell you, it’s not the team’s fault. It’s the leader’s responsibility to build a culture where every voice matters.
In this article, I discuss why traditional leadership language holds teams back and provide actionable steps to create a space where people feel free to collaborate and experiment. I have also included an exercise to help you start practising right away.
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Silence
I once led a team that avoided questioning my decisions. At first, I thought they were just being supportive. But as time went on, I realized that silence wasn’t agreement, it was disengagement.
This behaviour is rooted in a leadership model that’s been around since the early 20th century. Back then, efficiency was the goal, and leaders were seen as thinkers while workers were doers. Today’s challenges require a different approach: teams that are adaptable, creative, and empowered to contribute.
Signs Your Leadership Style Needs a Shift
You hear “yes” too often: A lack of pushback might mean your team is uncomfortable challenging you.
Decisions go unquestioned: If ideas are rarely debated, you’re likely missing diverse perspectives.
Morale feels low: Disengaged engineers often feel their voices don’t matter.
When I saw these signs, I knew I had to change how I communicated. But that shift isn’t always easy, especially if you’ve been leading the same way for years.
Safety
To promote your team’s creativity, the first step is trust. People need to feel safe sharing ideas, even if they contradict yours.
How I Learned to Show Vulnerability
Early in my career, I felt I had to appear confident all the time. But confidence without humility comes off as arrogance. I started admitting when I didn’t have the answer, and that small shift started bringing a change. People began opening up, offering ideas I hadn’t considered.
Tips to Build Trust and Safety
Lower the power gap: Spend time with your team informally and use language like, “What do you think?” instead of, “Here’s what I need you to do”.
Praise vulnerability: When someone speaks up, acknowledge their courage: “Thank you for bringing that up, it’s something we need to hear.”
The more you practice this, the easier it becomes to foster open communication.
Collaboration, Not Compliance
Once you start building trust, the next step is encouraging honest participation during decision-making.
Open-Ended Questions
In one meeting, I asked, “What risks are we missing?” instead of, “Are we good to move forward?”. That one change led to a 15-minute discussion that surfaced potential issues none of us had noticed.
Here are a few ways to encourage collaboration:
Ask “how” and “what” questions: These spark discussion and avoid yes/no answers.
Vote before debating: Have everyone write down or vote anonymously before anyone speaks to prevent bias.
Welcome dissent: Assign someone to play devil’s advocate to normalize disagreement.
When you shift the focus from compliance to contribution, your team begins to feel ownership over decisions.
Decisions as Experiments
Leaders often feel pressured to present decisions as final. But treating them as hypotheses you test together can change that dynamic.
Pause Points
After a major project failed due to an unchallenged assumption, I started scheduling “pause points” to revisit decisions. This habit helped my team catch mistakes early and course-correct.
Here’s how to create an experimental mindset:
Reframe decisions: Instead of saying, “This is the plan”, try, “Let’s test this and see what happens”.
Schedule check-ins: Regular reviews encourage people to speak up if something isn’t working.
Ask for commitment, not compliance: If team members don’t agree with the direction, ask for their commitment to trying it, not blind agreement.
Reflect, Celebrate, Improve
Reflection isn’t just about looking back, it’s about building better habits moving forward.
How I Celebrate Progress
I used to only celebrate project completions, but I’ve learned the power of recognizing small wins along the way. For example, during a tough sprint, I highlighted one developer’s initiative in finding a creative workaround. The acknowledgement motivated the whole team.
Here’s how you can make reflection part of your culture:
Celebrate milestones: Even small achievements build momentum.
Ask future-focused questions: “What did we learn?” instead of “What went wrong?”
Praise effort and growth: Recognize behaviours like persistence and teamwork over just results.
Reflection closes the loop on projects and sets your team up for continuous improvement.
Practice
Reflect on a recent project and consider how you could have encouraged more collaboration and experimentation.
Fostering Trust and Safety:
What could you have done to build trust and safety in your team? Think about showing vulnerability or explicitly valuing diverse perspectives.Inviting Honest Participation:
How could you have invited more honest input during decision-making? Consider asking open-ended questions or voting before discussing options.Seeking Commitment, Not Compliance:
How could you have encouraged team members to commit to testing decisions they didn’t fully agree with?Celebrating and Reflecting:
What are some ways you could have celebrated team efforts and identified growth opportunities?
TL;DR
Build trust by reducing power gaps and practising vulnerability.
Ask open-ended questions to invite collaboration and dissent.
Treat decisions as experiments and schedule pause points to revisit them.
Encourage commitment, not compliance, when testing ideas.
Celebrate progress and reflect on ways to improve together.
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