Real Leaders Don't Threaten - They Take Action

Did you threaten someone last week? An employee, a vendor, your kid, anyone? Well, guess what? Not only don't threats work, they actually diminish your control and credibility.

Except in rare cases, there are far better ways to manage people and get things done.

Lately, the threats have been flying fast and furious out of Washington. I've never heard so many weak, empty, and unsubstantiated threats in my entire life.

If we don't raise the debt ceiling by tomorrow ...

• Social security checks won't go out,
• Medicare payments won't be made,
• Government employees won't get paid,
• America will default on its debt payments,
• The credit rating agencies will lower our rating and all our interest rates will skyrocket.

Just in case you were wondering, that's so not the way to get things done ... or to do business, for that matter. On a news program the other day, noted economist, author, and economic advisor to President Reagan, Art Laffer, said this:

"The personal stuff that I hear being said by Obama is really in very poor taste and surely not a way to negotiate and certainly not the way to do business. I think all of this talk about catastrophe and end of the world and major recessions and downgrades, all of that is nonsense."

• Except in rare cases, they're not effective at motivating people to do your bidding or at achieving results.
• A threat prematurely commits you to a course of action that, in time, you may decide isn't such a good idea, in which case you've lost credibility by not following through.

Now, don't make the mistake of thinking that, just because it's not a threat, it doesn't have teeth. That depends entirely on how you follow up.

You see, if a threat's got teeth - meaning you're able to act on it - then you can just as easily follow up on a request with the same action, just without the threat. That way, the person learns that, when you ask for something, you mean business. That's how you achieve credibility and get things done without giving up control.

For example, if you ask someone to do something, and they don't do it - in spite of reasonable efforts to motivate them - then you can give the employee a bad review, shoot the vendor, or punish your kid. If it's your boss, you can quit.

Of course, your action shouldn't come out of left field. You should tell people what you expect and let them know when you're dissatisfied. And you can act on a single incident or wait for lots of smaller ones to pile up. But you can do all that without prematurely committing yourself to a course of action, unnecessarily limiting your choices, and risk losing your credibility.

That's what all good leaders and savvy managers do. Next time you want somebody to do something and you're inclined to threaten, try it this way instead. It works.

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