Subject Lines: Separating so-so leaders from great leaders
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I'm running a leadership summit for a client next month, and have been thinking hard about all the things that make a leader great.
The bottom line: Great leaders are effective. Effective people get the right things done.
How much meaningful work does that person get done - by himself, and through others? How easy is it for those others to accomplish what they should, working for that person?
If you look at leadership that way, you can quickly identify the effective leaders in your company. They are facilitators. Their instructions are clear. Their intentions are clear. Their vision - their "roadmap," if you will - is clear. Those who work for them know what the goal is, and how their leader expects them to get there. They know what they must do.
Which brings us to the mighty email Subject Line.
Most work projects are initiated, discussed, and managed via email. Instructions are given. Supporting materials are passed from one person to another. Work is organized by subject line (and the names of attached files).
To work on a particular project, you go to your inbox, find the messages that pertain to the assignment, and then start to take the necessary steps.
Given the importance of subject lines, you would think that managers would pay more attention to them. Most don't. They and their people would get a lot more done if they used subject lines as they should be used.
I've seen top-level corporate managers try to kick off a major effort using a subject line that started sometime back in 2003, and was unhelpful even then: "Further thoughts" or "getting back to you." The message inside was long and rambling, a collection of threads between dozens of people. Finally the group had come to a consensus. In the "now it's time to get to work" email, the manager leaves the subject line as is, adds a few lines at the top of the message, and sends it out to everyone.
This isn't leadership. This is dereliction of digital duty.
A good leader would take the extra 5 - 10 minutes to create a NEW email with a NEW subject line: "Project XYZ kickoff: Roles, responsibilities, and deadlines." There would be no doubt in anyone's mind that THIS is the important email, because of the subject line. The effective leader would make sure it contained all the information everyone needed to get started. Everything would be spelled out, organized, prioritized, and clear.
And, it would be easy to find later - just sort by subject line, and there it is, right where you'd expect to find it. A good leader would then start the subject line on all other emails on Project XYZ with "Project XYZ" - so people could gather them all in one folder as new messages came in from the boss.
Businesses could take a hint from the military, which gives operations code names. If all of the emails about your company's website redesign started with "NewSite," it would be really easy for people to gather and use all the relevant material on the subject.
Attention to the right details makes a leader exponentially more effective. How great are your subject lines?
"What's enchanting? A book that tells you exactly how to grow your revenue." - Guy Kawasaki, author of Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions
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