Should: The One Word That Quietly Takes Away Choice

Twenty-five years ago, I entered a three-year transformational mind dynamics program that changed my life.

At its core, the program was about learning how the brain works, how much of our behavior and communication happens unconsciously, and how to wake up the conscious mind so we can become more deliberate in the way we think, speak, listen, and respond to others.

It was also about learning how to communicate in a way that creates more joy, more understanding, more connection, and less unnecessary conflict.

During those three years, I was taught to eliminate five words from my vocabulary:

I have been implementing that training ever since.

Each word taught me something different.

The word but taught me how easily one thought can diminish another.

The word try taught me to listen for whether a measurable agreement actually exists.

The word fine taught me to pay attention.

And the word should was one of the hardest, and one of the most valuable, for me to eliminate:

I almost wrote this sentence while working on this post:

And then I caught myself.

Because that is exactly the point.

Not because the word is inherently bad.

Because I learned how differently it can land when it comes from someone who has influence.

If you are someone's boss, mentor, parent, advisor, teacher, or simply someone they respect, "you should" does not necessarily sound like a suggestion.

It can sound like an instruction.

• "You should take that job."
• "You should handle the situation this way."
• "You should talk to that person."
• "You should manage your team differently."
• "You should make this move in your career."

The person hearing it may not hear:

Here is one idea for you to consider.

They may hear:

This is what Deidre thinks I am supposed to do.

And now something I intended as advice has become pressure.

The More Influence You Have, the More Your Words Weigh

This was the part that changed things for me.

When someone looks to us for guidance, there is already an imbalance in the conversation. Our opinion carries more weight.

Add the word should, and we can unintentionally narrow the person's thinking even further.

Instead of considering ten possibilities, suddenly they are evaluating one:

That is the opposite of what I want to do when someone comes to me for guidance.

I do not want to make their decision for them.

I want to help them see the entire field.

The opportunities.

The risks.

The paths they have not considered.

The consequences of each choice.

The questions they may not have thought to ask.

And then I want them to decide.

To me, that is leadership.

There Is Research Behind This

What I learned about should fits closely with decades of research around autonomy and human motivation.

Self-Determination Theory distinguishes between autonomous motivation, when people experience choice and ownership over what they are doing, and controlled motivation, where behavior is driven more by pressure, demands, rewards, punishment, or obligation.

Research on leadership in the workplace describes autonomy-supportive leadership as doing things such as offering choices, considering another person's perspective, explaining the rationale behind a request, and using non-controlling language. Controlling leadership does the opposite: it pressures, directs, or coerces.

A meta-analysis of workplace research found that leader autonomy support was strongly associated with employees' autonomous work motivation and was also connected with outcomes including engagement, job satisfaction, performance, and well-being.

And this is not just theoretical. In an intervention with corporate managers, researchers trained leaders to use more autonomy-supportive behaviors, including non-controlling language and explaining the reasons behind requests. Employees reporting to those managers subsequently experienced less controlled forms of motivation.

The research is not saying that the specific word should is always harmful.

I would not make that claim.

But it strongly supports the lesson I took from eliminating it:

So What Do I Say Instead?

This is where eliminating should became really useful for me.

Instead of:

"You should take the job."

I can say:

"Let's look at the options. Here is what I see as the upside and downside of each."

Instead of:

"You should handle it this way."

I can say:

"There are a few ways you could approach this. Let me walk you through them."

Instead of:

"You should go into leadership."

I can say:

"You have several paths available to you. Let's talk about what each one could look like."

Instead of giving someone my answer, I can give them perspective.

That is a very different form of support.

And frankly, it is harder.

Telling someone what they should do takes about five seconds.

Helping someone see a 360-degree view of their possibilities takes time, questions, listening, and sometimes the discipline to keep your own opinion from becoming the answer.

There Are Times When "Should" Belongs

I do not believe we need to play word-police with ourselves.

There are situations where there genuinely is a required action.

• An emergency.
• A safety issue.
• A compliance requirement.
• A technical procedure.
• Direct training where something must be done in a particular sequence or a specific way.

If there is truly one correct or required course of action, say it.

But that is very different from:

"You should run your career this way."

"You should make this leadership decision."

"You should deal with this person the way I would."

Those are not facts.

They are opinions.

And the higher our position, the easier it is for our opinions to be mistaken for instructions.

Give People the Whole Field

This word changed me because it made me much more conscious of the responsibility that comes with being asked for advice.

If someone trusts me enough to ask what I think, I do not want to use that trust to steer them toward my answer.

I want to use it to help them find their answer.

Show them the options.

Ask the questions.

Share the experience you have that they do not.

Point out the risks.

Point out the opportunities.

Challenge their assumptions.

Then give the decision back to them.

Because great leadership is not about creating more people who make the decisions we would make.

That is why should became one of my five words to eliminate.

Sometimes removing one word creates a whole lot more possibility.

I have come to believe the same thing is true of the choices leaders give themselves. When a leader cannot see the full range of work, capabilities, and dependencies across their teams, they end up deciding between the one or two options that happen to be visible, which is the same narrowing that the word should does to a person. That is why understanding the full workforce ecosystem a security team actually runs on matters before anyone decides what the next move has to be.

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This is the fourth in a series about the five words I was taught to remove from my vocabulary 25 years ago, and what they have taught me about communication, leadership, accountability, empathy, and human connection.