3 Words You Should Drop From Your Leadership Vocabulary Starting Now

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Words matter when you’re a leader, and not all words are equally useful.

In fact, you should banish at least three from your leadership vocabulary.

Nobody wins when you use these words regularly, and they might be damaging your leadership without you even realizing it.

I end up using these words when I fail to take decisive actions.

I use these three words

as substitutes for action

as substitutes for specifics

as substitutes for clarity

3 Words to Banish Starting Now

So which three words trip up leader after leader and team after team? Here they are:

1. Someone

You know how this comes up. Someone should do something about that. Someone should fix that. Someone should step up.

Someone really means no one.

Here are some handy substitutes:

will do something about it today.

I’m going to ask Josh to have that fixed by Friday.

Every single day, I’m going to ask five people to tackle the problem until someone steps up and says yes.

You can’t build the future on someone.

2. Something

You’ve said it. We need to do something about that.

I’m sure that’s true.

But the translation is that no one will do anything about it at all. Not until you become clear and specific.

Exactly what needs to be done? If you can’t define the solution, you haven’t even properly diagnosed the problem.

But answer those specific questions and things change. Then you have a plan.

If you can't define the solution then you haven't even properly diagnosed the problem. Click To Tweet

3. Someday

Leaders can’t help but dream about someday. I dream and think about the future every single day.

But someday is also the graveyard of too many dreams and far too much vision.

You’re going to hire a dream staff member someday.

You’re going to radically change your church someday.

You’re going to break that bad habit someday.

You’re going to get organized someday.

And someday never comes. Days become months which become years and absolutely nothing happens.

Someday actually means never.

As my friend Casey Graham says, deadlines drive decisions.

Putting a date on every intention might scare the life out of you, but that’s awesome. You’ll get things done. You will.

Jeffrey E. Garten has rightly pointed out that vision without execution is a hallucination. Far too many leaders hallucinate. And they’re not actually leading anyone when they do.

If you can’t put a calendar date on it, then put a year on it and reverse engineer toward it. Sure, you’ll encounter setbacks, but only the determined eventually break through.

I’m a far better leader when I stop talking about someone doing something someday.

You are too.

You'll be a much better leader when you stop talking about someone doing something someday. Click To Tweet

You’ve Prepared Your Sermon. You’re Ready For Sunday. But Is It Any Good? Will It Land?

Here’s the problem... you only ever find out if your sermon didn't connect after you've already preached it.

So, what can you do when seminary didn't really prepare you to speak into the current reality of our culture or connect with a growing audience?

What will change that?

Option #1 - Years of trial-and-error (what I did).

Option #2 - Transform your preaching as early as this Sunday.

While there are aspects of preaching that are out of our control, certain skills that make a sermon engaging, memorable, and relevant can be learned and practiced.

That’s exactly why Mark Clark (Senior Pastor at Bayside Church) and I created The Art of Preaching. It's our comprehensive guide that will transform your preaching—from preparation to delivery .

The course covers the foundations of truly effective preaching:

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  • How to ensure you’re doing exegesis (not eisegesis)
  • Changes you can make to your delivery and weekly process
  • And more…

But it goes WAY beyond that, too. We share our entire method that we use every single time we preach:

  • Specific reasons a sermon may not be effective
  • 5 easy steps you can take to ditch your notes for good
  • The step-by-step process to write a clear and memorable bottom line
  • How to find power in the text
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It’s helped 2,500+ pastors preach more engaging and memorable sermons, and it can do the same for you.

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Carey Nieuwhof
Carey Nieuwhof

Carey Nieuwhof is a best-selling leadership author, speaker, podcaster, former attorney, and church planter. He hosts one of today’s most influential leadership podcasts, and his online content is accessed by leaders over 1.5 million times a month. He speaks to leaders around the world about leadership, change, and personal growth.