Clarity without decency is cruel, decency without clarity foolish

Setting the direction AND tone in leadership

Clarity without decency is cruel, decency without clarity foolish

Lockdown saw Liebfrog leap into its seventh year. They say seven’s a lucky number and that’s certainly been true for Liebfrog. During these unrecognisable times of accelerated change, I’ve been privileged to work as a consultant, trainer and coach with the top teams and leaders of several international organisations.

That up close and personal experience has brought into sharp focus how challenging good leadership is in today’s turbulent world. The pandemic has changed our workplaces as well as our expectations of what working life should look and feel like.

Great leadership, i.e. defining a clear strategy and bringing out the best in people to deliver, has always been what ultimately determines success. But in our new virtual/hybrid world this is even more important – and for most of us even harder.

Yet only if we succeed in setting both, the right direction AND the right tone, do we create cultures that attract, retain and enable great talent. I emphasise the word ‘and’ deliberately because it’s not one or the other: they must work together. Strategy and communication can be clearer than Swarovski crystal. But if people don’t feel appreciated, seen and heard we’ll get compliance at best in a world that demands creative and committed collaboration.      

I’m sure we all know a boss who is the nicest person, but who can’t see the wood for the trees let alone take decisive action to lead their team out of the forest. On the other hand, there’s the boss who has a strategic mind and great decision-making abilities but can’t connect at a human level, so fails to bring others along.

Neither can be successful in the long run. 

Two elements fundamentally underpin effective leadership: clarity & decency

Discussing leadership with many professionals at all levels has crystallised for us that it’s two elements that fundamentally underpin effective leadership: clarity and decency.

Clarity is about setting the direction, having a strategic mind, clear communications and making decisions – with a willingness to make the tough ones when required. This can only work alongside decency, which is having self-awareness, respect for others, empathy, an understanding of how our words and actions impact others and yes, a moral compass.

Easy? For most of us it’s not. Unsurprisingly, we tend to be better at one over the other.  

But it‘s like ice skating. We each have a different technique - some of us lead with our right skate, some with our left, but we need both to move forward without losing our balance. The tracks we leave behind sometimes show our skates have come closer together, before drifting apart again. Occasionally we show our skills by balancing on just one skate, but the longer we do so the more likely we are to hit a bump. And when we stumble or fall it can hurt – in the case of leadership not just ourselves, but our people and our performance.

Leading with clarity and decency can be learned

At Liebfrog we know people can learn the mindset, skills and behaviours they need to lead with clarity and decency because we’ve been there for them and helped them to do it.