Being clear is not only helpful, it's actually being kind. Being unclear about expectations, fuzzy on what you really need, or skirting around an issue, is actually unkind — it sets people up to fail, and creates problems in the future.

If you don't give clear feedback then you're holding that person back from improving. If you say two weeks, but you're really expecting one week, then you'll resent it when it's not done in time. If you say it's really fine when it's not then you'll continue to be upset about how things are going.

Clear is kind is a simple reminder, though by no means always easy, of how being clear in your communication is the generous, brave, helpful, and kind thing to do.

I learned clear is kind, and unclear is unkind, from Brené Brown in Dare to Lead, and she said she first heard it in a 12-steps meeting. I borrowed the dancing emphasis from the always excellent Eva-Lotta Lamm.

Clear is kind

Extrinsic motivation is the carrot or the stick — when the motivation for doing something is an IF/THEN reward or punishment. We use extrinsic motivation all the time like paying people to come into work, or issuing speeding fines to make people slow down. It can work well for simple problems, basic compliance, and short-term results.

However, when you need long-term behaviour change, when creativity is needed, or you're tackling complex problems, external rewards and the threat of punishments can even decrease performance and productivity. Rewards only go so far if you want to inspire a hit album, create the next Oscar-winning film, or create a breakthrough product. That is, for most of the important work we do in our lives, including I believe parenting, using extrinsic motivators of rewards or punishments is likely to be far less effective than tapping into intrinsic motivation — motivation that comes from inside ourselves.

I like Dan Pink's Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose framework for intrinsic motivation. His TED talk on the Puzzle of Motivation is also a fun and interesting watch.

Extrinsic motivation

I've read that Steve Jobs used to tell a story to new VPs about a janitor and a CEO. If you were the janitor and were asked to clean an office, it's reasonable to have not cleaned it if you found the door was locked and you didn't have the key. However, somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, the reasons or excuses for why something happened or couldn't be done stop mattering. It probably isn't your fault that the system went down, or that you didn't have access to the office, but as a leader it's your responsibility to make things happen and mistakes are now your responsibility too.

The sketch is not meant to downplay the role or attitude of janitors in any way or say that this is the difference between janitors and CEOs. Here's more on how Steve explains it.

The story is a nice example of the accountability ladder.

I learned this from the excellent Julie Zhou.

Reasons stop mattering

Bosses push information up to authority. Leaders push authority down to information.

This little gem is from ex-submarine captain turned leadership guru, David Marquet. Pretty much any talk by him is great, but here's an entertaining and thought-provoking talk by him I enjoyed.

See his book Turn the ship around!: A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders

Push authority to information

Much of the success of a good manager or leader is making sure your team can get the right work done. The demands on a team, say a product team in a tech company, increase as organisations grow. Before you know it there are requests from all sides that can sap a team's time, energy, and ability to get the key work done.

Todd Jackson, former product manager of Gmail, memorably shared that a manager can be an umbrella or a funnel. The umbrella protects their team to let them get work done and the funnel lets everything pour through.

All of us want autonomy to choose our own actions but none of us want to be overwhelmed.

Umbrellas and funnels

Simon Sinek’s simple idea to start with why. To get a better feel, watch his 18min TED talk: How great leaders inspire action. I found his concrete example of “It was the ‘I have a dream’ speech, not the ‘I have a plan’ speech,” helps keep in mind the power of starting with why and painting a vision in order to inspire and lead. Now, if you have a vision, a strategy and a plan, well, then you’re in business.

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
— Simon Sinek

Simon’s has parallels with another I like:

Products aren’t just things that you buy, they’re things that you buy into.

Sketchplanations tagged with leadership