leaders – Jason Hensel

The first rule of improv is “yes and.” There are other rules, or rather guidelines, however “yes and” is the one and only rule that truly matters. Without agreeing to the reality presented to you, progress trips over itself, and you and your co-performer are left staring at each other.

Much like improv performers, company leaders and managers should learn the “yes and” rule and stick it in their hearts. I’m flabbergasted at the number of times over the years I’ve experienced a “yes but” manager. Maybe there’s a “yes but” class at MBA schools, or maybe mentors train managers in the art of “yes but.”

Stop the “yes but” cycle of abuse, I say!

No one likes to have an idea agreed to with conditions. When you do that, you stop progress. The employee starts immediately placing restrictions on ideas. It’s more fruitful to agree and add to the proposal.

Of the following examples, tell me which is better:

Employee: “I plan to recycle all the aluminum cans in the break room.”
Manager: “Great, but that’s a lot of cans and you’ll have to do it all yourself.”

Employee: “I plan to recycle all the aluminum cans in the break room.”
Manager: “Great, and I know a place you can take them that offers the most money.”

If you’re truly a leader, or want to be one, you’ll see the benefit of contributing to an idea and moving forward rather than holding back and letting fear, doubt, or pessimism dictate your decisions.

The great improv teacher Del Close once said to “follow the fear.” What he meant by that is you should go toward what makes you uncomfortable, do things that scare you. For a lot of leaders, agreeing to an idea wholeheartedly scares the snot out of them. That’s exactly what they should do, though. Agreement isn’t the endgame, however. You have to add to the conversation, move it forward.

Do me a favor. This week, with everyone you interact with, make “yes and” a part of every conversation. It will seem uncomfortable and forced at first. Over time, though, it will become instinctual. After the week is over, reflect and let me know if you feel happier with your decisions and that life is moving forward.

If you’re creating an atmosphere of agreement, I can guarantee that your employees will agree to follow you. If you’re a but leader, though, employees will find any excuse to counter your decisions. Don’t be a “yes but” leader. Be a “yes and” leader.

(Image via Flickr: visualpun.ch / Creative Commons)

Send to Kindle

Finally, something women and men can agree on together–both genders prefer leaders with masculine voices. The research comes from Rindy Anderson (Duke University) and Casey Klofstad (University of Miami), and was published in PLOS ONE.

…the researchers asked people to listen to the phrase “I urge you to vote for me this November” spoken by two voices that differed only in their pitch. They found that both men and women preferred female candidates with masculine voices. Men also preferred men with masculine voices but women did not discriminate between the male voices they heard. According to the authors, their results suggest that the influence of voice pitch on perceptions of leadership capacity is consistent across different domains of leadership and independent of social context.

“We often do not consider how our biology can influence our decision making,” Klofstad said. “The results of this study show that voice pitch–a physiological characteristic–can affect how we select our leaders.”

Why, then, do both genders prefer leaders with masculine voices?

“In the case of women’s voices, this bias could be a consequence of lower-pitched female voices being perceived as more competent, stronger, and more trustworthy,” the authors wrote in the study. “That is, these traits are perceived as positive in the context of leadership and could be the mechanism that leads us to prefer female leaders with lower voices. Additionally, the pitch of the female voice declines over the lifespan. Consequently, selection of female leaders with lower-pitched voices can result in the selection of women who are older, and perhaps more experienced at leading others. Stated differently, men and women may be biased to select older women as leaders, regardless of the type of position in question. In the case of men’s voices, men with lower-pitched voices are larger, stronger, and more aggressive. Again these traits are perceived as positive in the context of leadership, leading us to prefer male leaders with lower voices.”

Knowing this, would you change your vocal pitch to sound more like a leader?

(Story quotes from the Public Library of Science. Image via Flickr: cav… / Creative Commons.)

Send to Kindle

Jason Hensel

Are You a But Leader?

Lower Pitched Voices Viewed as More Competent