Clarifying Leadership

I prefer to take a different approach to understanding the key to leadership and look at it from the perspective of the team members – in whatever context – who are being led: ultimately good leadership is subject to the impact the leader has on the team’s overall performance and how he or she responds to the team’s expectations.

Expectations of the leader will vary depending on the circumstances in which the team finds itself – and in this I shall take a purely business context. Is the company at the forefront of its market? Is it a fast-growing contender? Has it fallen on hard times and needs to be completely revamped? However, in my experience there is a constant whatever the circumstances of the business which ultimately defines what all employees want: that constant is clarity.

How many times have you sat in a meeting and the decisions by the end of the meeting – that is, the core reasons the meeting took place – are not clear. Phrases such as “We need to take that offline” (a truly odious phase which undermines teamwork, represents a lack of courage or trust in failing to express opinions openly and also implies that decision-making is a batch process from the old mainframe computer days – although on reflection in many companies that is probably a fair description!) or “We need to figure that out” or “We need to spend time thinking about that” are symptomatic of the enemy of clarity: the search for certainty. Certainty is rarely achievable – except with hindsight. The search for certainty means that decisions are deferred or unclear; expectations are badly set so that employees do not know what they must do; strategic direction and message is muddled as leaders are afraid of the consequences of the decision. The consequences of not taking the decision and not communicating clearly are far worse!

At SaintGroup Managed Services we have adopted a mantra which states: “We may not be certain what we are doing is the right thing, but we will be absolutely clear about what we are doing”. This philosophy of Clarity over Certainty means that we take decisions quickly – although embrace as many points of view as possible with vigorous, informed debate – and are not afraid of the consequences. Where it turns out the decision is wrong we recognise that, change it and move on. The 80% rule applies: only typically 20% of our decisions need to be reviewed and all our stakeholders (customers, employees, suppliers, partners and investors) know what they can expect of us.

Am I certain this philosophy is right? Not at all – but I am really clear what the philosophy is!