Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away. Uncertainty is not an indication of poor leadership; it underscores the need for leadership. It is the environment in which good leadership is most easily identified.
Where there is no uncertainty, there is no longer the need for leadership. As Jim Kouzes puts it, "Uncertainty creates the necessary condition for leadership."
Leadership is all about taking people on a journey. The challenge is that most of the time, we are asking people to follow us to places we ourselves have never been. There aren't any photographs—we are left with word pictures, metaphors, and illustrations. There are no maps to guide us—we are left to cut a trail. Yet as we move forward into the uncertainty before us, we sense the need to turn occasionally and assure those who follow.
This is the tension every good leader lives with: negotiating uncertain terrain while casting a clear and compelling vision. There is always uncertainty. But uncertainty underscores the need for clarity.
Four keys to clarity
1. Express your uncertainty with confidence. In leadership we're always tempted to pretend to know more than we really do. We fear that people won't follow us unless we seem all-knowing.
Two things always happen when we pretend. First, we close ourselves off from the input of others. Second, we expose our insecurity to the people we have asked to follow us.
2. Seek wise counsel. Leadership is not about making decisions on your own. It is about owning the decisions once you make them. If you aren't certain, find out what others are thinking. Consensus builds confidence in the face of uncertainty.
3. Measure your success by the scoreboard, not the playbook. Every good coach goes into the game to win. About that he is perfectly clear. And every good coach has a strategy, a plan. But every good coach is willing to scrap his plan in order to win. Leaders, like coaches, are forced to abandon their plans at times in order to deliver on the vision. The leader who refuses to scrap or revise his plans rarely reaches his destination.
4. Be willing to act decisively. Uncertainty will not be your undoing as a leader. However, your inability to give a clear directive in the midst of uncertainty might very well be the thing that takes you out or causes you to plateau early in your career.
Uncertainty is simply a fact of leadership. Uncertainty calls for clarity. Be clear even when you are not certain. Lead confidently. Once a decision is made, move forward. If your decision proves to be wrong, own it. You will survive a few bad decisions. You will not survive a lack of clarity.
Read the unedited acticle"The Uncertain Leader" by Andy Stanley
Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.
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