THE IMPORTANCE OF LEADERS AVOIDING THE USE OF “THEM AND US”

When you’re a member of a team prior to holding a leadership role it’s really easy to have an ‘us and them’ mentality that manifests itself in everyday conversations, with “them” being a generic word to describe management and decision makers.  

As a team member it’s good practice not to use the language of ‘us and them’, but as a team leader it is vitally important to purge your vocabulary of this phrase. It shouldn’t be used in the first place even as a team member because ultimately everyone in great teams feel like they’re part of the whole company, and don’t use phrases that are unconstructive and potentially divisive.  

The challenge with using the language of ‘us and them’ as a team leader around your team, particularly when speaking about management above you, is that you are role-modelling the use of siloed thinking (us and them), which gives the team permission at some stage to have the same thinking and use of the phrase when referring to the team as “us”, and you as the team leader being part of the “them” of management. The phrase that previously had been used to include you as part of the team can then be used to exclude you now that you’re part of management. If you don’t role model the words or the phrase in the first place, then it’s much less likely to come back to bite you in the backside in the future.

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