I'd never considered 'leadership language' until listening to a recent podcast.
The importance of being able to communicate, be understood, engage and influence different individuals and groups.
This certainly applies to leaders in primary care, who need to be multilingual in the sense of having a flexible approach to the language they use. Think how the interests, priorities, agendas and language used by different groups differ:
🔶 Clinician to Non-clinician
🔷 Commissioner to Patient
🔶 Stakeholder to Staff
If you use the same language, all the time, then don’t assume you'll be understood. Your preferred language, that which you're most comfortable with, may not get the results you want. Instead think about your audience, the language they're used to, and be ready to adapt and translate for them.
Too much management speak, overly clinical, and littered with jargon and acronyms, is likely to be unclear unless tailored for a specific audience.
So, if you're a leader in primary care, think about your leadership language. When you need to communicate, whether that is to engage, learn, inform, impart knowledge, request or Influence, be ready to adjust your approach and think about these questions
❓ Who are you speaking to?
❓ What do you need to achieve?
❓ How are you going to say it?
❓ Is there something additional that can help illustrate what you have to say?
This blog was inspired by the following podcast:
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