how do I take ownership of mixed messages to the people under me from the other leaders in my group pretty straightforward question I like it well first of all you have to address this straight up with the other leaders in your group because if you aren’t aligned as a leadership team this is going to hurt the cause it is absolutely gonna hurt the cause this is critical and it’s going to be hard and there are some things in your group that people do not agree on and that is why they are undermining the messaging or why they’re giving out different messaging because they don’t agree with it they don’t have the courage to stand up and say hey I don’t agree with this right here so let’s do it a different way here’s my thoughts they don’t have to curse do that so what do they do they just sit back and then when it comes time to put out the word they put out the mixed messages and it’s it’s a bad situation and you actually have to lead here that’s what you have to do and it shouldn’t actually be that hard because what you’re asking for is something that anybody can tell is important so you know you say this you say to your leadership team you go hey guys our message to the troops needs to be aligned and right now it isn’t we need to fix that is there anyone on your leadership team is going to disagree with that no they won’t that’s not what they disagree with they everybody knows that the leadership team has to have an aligned message they have to be on the same sheet music and that’s what you need to do and and again it’s going to be a hard conversation it’s going to bring out that statement should bring out the conversation of what people don’t agree on and why they’re sending missed messages now if you if you cannot get them aligned it is a serious problem but if you can’t the best thing you can do is mitigate mitigate that to your team by becoming the trusted voice so with your team you want to become the trusted voice now this doesn’t mean that you can go on undermine your other leaders and say uh echo came in here he doesn’t know he’s talking about no no no no that’s not what I’m talking about I’m never almost never talking about undermining another leader or a leadership team what I’m gonna do though is I’m gonna translate I’m a same hey guys our job on this I know echo said that here’s our job here’s here’s what our focus needs to be here’s the way this translates for us so I’m not disparaging you and I’m not even disagreeing with you I’m simply honing the message for my team now you still even when you do that you’re mitigating that as much as possible you still have to maintain the critical goal of getting your leadership team aligned and one other little tool to help make that happen is to present their words back to them mmm and you said you know I wrote down what you said to the team this morning and I just want to go through that with you and break it down a little bit and and then go through it line by line and have the hard conversations and make the tough decisions you got to make the tough decisions and also give a little seed some points right be flexible but unify unify the message and there’s a worse not even worst case scenario but there are scenarios where echo and I cannot agree on the message and we got to go up the chain of command now I would never want to do that I would never ever want to say to my boss hey echo and I can agree you need to make a decision for us to me that’s a total failure it’s a failure in my leadership that I can’t get us on the same sheet of music so I don’t I can’t even think of any time that I ever did that went to my boss and said hey boss I can’t wait you know I can’t come to come to a conclusion here with the other tasks in your commanders I can’t come to a conclusion with the other platoon commanders or I can’t come to the conclusion with the my squad about how it is I’ve never done that so you should be able to if you’re right you’ll win the argument and if you’re wrong didn’t you change your mind so it’s not that it’s not like this open not like I’m saying I’m great I’m just saying if you’re right then you’ll win the argument and if you’re wrong then you’ll change your mind so it’s not that hard so that’s what happens needs to happen here with the leadership team we’ve got right now who’s right and people that a right need to convince the people that are wrong now you need to check your ego obviously across the board everything everybody on the team’s got to check their ego because a lot of people will be holding on to their idea because it’s their idea and they love their idea mm-hmm because their statistical and that’s how I would deal with mixed messages coming down the chain of command I’m going to go ahead and just say it that could have been one of the best lines I’ve ever heard if you’re right you win the argument if you’re wrong you’ll change your mind that’s a good that’s a good one your thing denim I did just make it up here I mean I guess it’s something that I’ve known but right yeah that’s what makes it so good because you kind of kind of seems like oh yeah you know right but that’s never the case but if your being on the up-and-up there it is right there
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