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The Power of Tone Setting

Written by: Tim Schneider

Article Overview: When used in the leadership role, simple human interactions can have extraordinary impact and power in managing morale and productivity. Quite simply, leaders with good tone setting skills will achieve much greater results, improve the loyalty of their team members, work through difficulties easier, create an environment with less stress and deliver greater levels of service to their end customers.

The Power of Tone Setting

Good morning. How is your day going so far? How are the kids? That dog of yours is hilarious.

When used in the leadership role, simple human interactions can have extraordinary impact and power in managing morale and productivity. Quite simply, leaders with good tone setting skills will achieve much greater results, improve the loyalty of their team members, work through difficulties easier, create an environment with less stress and deliver greater levels of service to their end customers.

The truest definition that has passed the test of time is that leadership is the art and science of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it for you. This definition supports both the very personal nature of leadership and the role of followers in the leadership equation. Team members work for the leader and not the organization and willing followers are needed for effective leadership.

Tone setting is a core leadership skill that requires effective leaders to invest significant time and energy into the morale and energy of their team members. It also requires a singular belief, that in leadership, the most important task is the team and not any individual project or work that the leader is performing individually.

Effective tone setting comes with a penalty. Perhaps one of the biggest penalties of leadership is that as a great tone setter, the leader is not allowed the luxury of having a bad day. No moping about what happened at home. No complaining about how the organization has pooped on your career path. No crying about other people or how you have not been dealt a bad hand. Another cost of tone setting is the amount of physical energy that is required to do it well. It is common to report a feeling of being drained when tone setting was used consistently as a leadership skill.

To be effective in this skill set, the leader must recognize that the tone setting responsibility begins the moment that he or she is at the workplace. In some cases this means being a tone setter in the parking lot or walking down the hall to the working environment. Team members will pick up as much on non-verbal signals as what the leader says. Great tone setters approach this phenomenon almost as being “on stage” or “show time.”

After arriving in the work area with upbeat facial expression, neutral or positive body language and an approachable walking pace, the leader is faced with a common dilemma. In his or her office is work. Mountains of notes, papers, a few hundred new emails and the flashing light of phone messages waiting. There are also people. The people that do the work. The people that are looking to you for the tone for the day. Go directly to the office and you are telling people, that at best, they are second most important. Greet them first and you tell them that they are the most important part of the organization.

The initial greeting of team members will establish morale and good tone for about two to three hours. This greeting needs to be delivered in a sincerely upbeat manner and focus on the individual team member and not about work issues or challenges. Tone setting is not an inspection tour or grand inquisition. The purpose is to demonstrate the feeling of importance to team members to improve their productivity and service delivery. This greeting should be personalized to include items of importance to the team member’s perspective.

After the initial tone setting run, the leader is given several opportunities during a typical day to maintain or reestablish workplace tone. Reviewing situations with optimism, removing negative language, avoiding gossip and staying away of self-seriousness are several small ways to manage tone. Another effective method is through healthy doses of positive feedback without any chained statements or conditions. As a side note, cynicism or sarcasm are rarely effective with anyone in tone setting.

The real punch from tone setting comes from an analysis of the cost and the return on the tone setting investment. Morale rises, productivity is enhanced, turnover is reduced, service is improved and the cost for this improvement is absolutely nothing more than a little leadership energy.

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Article Tags: art and science, belief that, career path, core leadership, effective leadership, having a bad day, human interactions, individual project, leadership role, leadership skill, loyalty, morale and productivity, nature of leadership, personal nature, physical energy, significant time, stress, team members work, test of time, willing followers



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