You explain to a team member that a project needs more urgency, so you’re assigning it to a teammate who has more capacity.
Then, instead of passing off the assignment, the original team member comes back to you with a plan.
Or you ask a colleague to hold off on conducting a meeting regarding an issue as you are working on it behind the scenes. But they go ahead and schedule the meeting anyway.
Or you lay out a set of priorities for a team member, and they give all their attention to something not on your list.
These scenarios are all too real for many leaders.
It may be that some team members are simply resistant to directions. Others may deliberately thumb their nose at the leader and chart their own path.
But it is equally common for team members to misinterpret the messages you send—and not on purpose. You say one thing, and the team member hears something very different.
People who consistently misinterpret directions, instructions, and other messages simply hear what they want to hear.
Their focus on themselves and their own self-interests prevents them from understanding, clarifying, and interpreting messages the way they should. In their excitement to execute, they miss the message. Sometimes entirely.
The answer to this frustrating dilemma is not to underline the instructions in colorful language or to be more directive in the way you give them. Explaining matters more clearly is not the solution. Good leaders take a different path.
Instead of explaining what they want to see in the future, they get more specific. They ask for specific actions.
Take, for instance, the situation where a leader asks a direct report to stand down on a matter until more data and information are gathered.
This request, like so many other directions that get ignored or misinterpreted, suggests inaction or what the other party should NOT do.
The better approach is to be clear about what action you want them to execute.
In this example, the better approach would be to ask the direct report to help gather more data. Or to draft an outline of the arguments regarding the issue.
Asking people to act is a much harder message to misinterpret than a request not to act. While it isn’t foolproof, telling people what you want them to do is typically far more effective than the opposite.
A request for action is always the clearest instruction.
A Daily Dispatch from the Front Lines of Leadership.
