The Quiet Toxicity of “You Should”

What do a CEO, a project team and a dinner with friends have in common?
There is almost always someone ready to tell you what you should do.

No one enjoys having someone else think on their behalf.
And yet, we all do it — more often than we realise.

Not only through explicit instructions, but also through seemingly harmless remarks, often delivered with a smile:
“You should get some rest.”
“You should invest more in marketing.”
“You really should launch this project before the end of the year.”

Behind the friendly tone, the effect is the same: someone is thinking for you.

And this is precisely what exhausts leaders, managers… and parents alike:
injunctions disguised as advice.

An injunction is not advice

An injunction does not support reflection.
It subtly directs, projects the speaker’s anxieties, and reduces the other person’s space for discernment.

In organisations, this dynamic is particularly visible.
Everyone “knows better” what their colleague, their HR director or their CEO should do.

The consequences are familiar:

leaders become reactive rather than reflective,
teams feel infantilised,
trust slowly erodes,
discernment weakens.

All of this, triggered by a few apparently harmless words:
“You should…”,
“You really ought to…”,
or a sentence framed in the imperative.

Adult leadership does the opposite

Mature leadership does not impose its own frame of reference.
It creates a space where the other person can think, choose and take responsibility.

Solid leaders ask questions rather than issuing prescriptions:
“What is making you hesitate?”
“What alternative could you also explore?”
“What are you truly prepared to take responsibility for?”

Because sustainable impact never comes from constraint.
It comes from discernment.
And discernment does not grow under pressure.

A simple experiment

Before telling someone what they should do, a useful question is:
am I genuinely helping them think — or am I mainly trying to soothe my own discomfort with their uncertainty?

For the next 24 hours, try a simple experiment:
replace every “you should” with a question, and observe what changes — in your team, at home, or at your next dinner with friends.