Clarity

Illuminating or blinding brigthness.

Clarity is often associated with leadership. Leaders are supposed to know where to go and what to do, to the extent that it can sometimes excuse bossiness. Indeed, if clarity helps to anticipate potential developments in situations, leaders need to be able to conceive of and deal with multiple possible outcomes to elevate their clairvoyance of strategy.

In doing so, the need for clarity-seeking leaders to focus on what is core may be a challenge resulting in over-simplification, or over-complication, depending on whether leaders succumb to cognitive biases and perceived patterns, or give in to their need to perceive the system in its complexity.

Such reactions may be triggered by differences in perceptions or lack of information, situations that clarity-seeking leaders may be prompted to label as duplicity and ambiguity. What’s more, modern management contexts often follow a “political” dynamic whereby carefully crafted narratives hold the higher ground which, for clarity-seeking leaders, may be unsettling or lonely.

“How can leaders make the best use of their need for clarity?”, asked the Mouse.

First, it is helpful for clarity-seeking leaders to distinguish between the various levels of clarity they can access and indeed need. Are they more focused on the unfolding (process), manifestation (facts and figures), essence (concepts), or the meaning (symbolical value) of things? In turn, does clarity apply to concrete situations, abstract systems, or relationships?

Awareness will help leaders respond to challenges by having clarity on the whys and wherefores underlining them. Because they see awareness as clarity, leaders may be able to accept their limits and vulnerability, and therefore work on it.

Secondly, grounding clarity in purpose can also be helpful. Leaders’ pragmatism can serve to establish a feedback loop helping them cope with ‘unclear’ situations or people, in virtuous iterative processes, without resorting to simplification, complexification, or even blaming.

Thirdly, collaboration can also provide a safe space for clarity-seeking leaders to leverage their unique skills while managing their need. In those cases, an effective advisory group would play three roles: reporter, counter-power, and translator.

The reporting role feeds into clarity-seeking leaders’ need to process the world as they see it. It contributes to building trust with them as it contributes to enriching leaders’ understanding of a situation, even if it challenges their worldview.

Acting as counter-power, advisors will help clarity-seeking leaders avoid resorting to manipulation as an antidote to their loneliness, or because they see ‘beyond’ or ‘through’ things that others may not. They will argue that manipulation follows an opposite logic to clarity, for it brings confusion.  

Trusted advisors to clarity-seeking leaders will also help them align with their teams, and embrace diversity in perspectives, instead of being divisive by stating what they see as matter of fact, sometimes authoritatively. The recipe is similar: alignment is a process rooted in singularity, whereas divisiveness is rooted in multiplicity.

Finally, advisors can play a useful role as translators of leaders’ visions to teams who may not see things as clearly, or perhaps less conceptually. Enjoying the safe space provided by a leader giving clear directions, teams may be more able to deal with ambiguous situations, long or blurry processes, feeding it back to leaders. The latter can then leverage their brightness without feeling the discomfort of being on the frontlines. This circle is worthwhile provided it doesn’t deprive leaders of their responsibility to challenge their worldview in determining what they see as matter of fact.

Hence, for clarity-seeking leaders to act consciously, they need to get clarity regarding their own internal dynamic and establish the same ‘feedback loop’ to process their emotions and worldview, as they do with the external world to increase their effectiveness. They may wonder whether the challenges they have in managing diversity of opinions or navigating blurriness are rooted in fear of losing control, missing out on opportunities, or being taken advantage of.   

In doing so, clarity-seeking leaders can play to their strengths by reframing what they perceive from their inner and outer worlds as tensions between different logics. Tensions allow for clarity without annulling the multiplicity of possibilities and perspectives. As such it acts as a natural counter power to leaders’ brightness, provide purpose in navigating the tension itself, and may be an antidote to their loneliness to navigate the tension. Leaders will need to connect.

Connection requires recognizing that other people have other needs and valuing the complementary qualities that come with it. It may make the difference between illuminating and blinding brightness.

Baptiste Raymond - 04/2022.