This post is about something I learned that helped me set my expectations in various situations right and position myself better in ambiguous situations.
Since I became an engineering manager, I had more chances to observe what makes leaders better in chaotic situations. Be it an organizational change, shifting culture, or dealing with layoffs. Despite many unknowns, they solve problems in one way or another. They stay calm, focus on the problem, evaluate the constraints, and lead people to a solution. The solution might not be ideal, but in any case, I observed how they do it, their behaviors, and their secrets. Here are my observations.
It all starts with accepting the reality. Let’s take an organizational change as an example. It’s one of the most ambiguous situations as many teams break up or change some of their members, and nobody knows how people will react to these changes. There is a big risk of turning high-performing teams into low-performing ones. With all that, many people struggle to accept changes, except for good senior leaders. They know there is no other way than to go through that rough time. Let me repeat because this is not obvious when you’re dealing with a change: there is no other way than going through it. And truly understanding that sentence helps a lot to change the mindset. Instead of arguing with reality (as Tamara Levitt says, “It hurts when we argue with reality”), leaders see ambiguity as a difficult puzzle to solve and dedicate themselves to finishing it.
As something becomes a puzzle, every piece leaders place builds the picture. Instead of putting every piece together simultaneously, they find the most important and obvious problem and solve that one first. Then, they go to the next. What they do is not new to me or (probably) you. The learning for me was realizing how this process repeats until the puzzle changes again. The puzzle rarely changes as a whole, but some parts definitely evolve and shape differently. The puzzle will never be completed, but an evolving organization demands understanding its constraints.
I don’t want to dive into organizational constraints and how to understand them here because it’s a big topic in itself (good reads: The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt and Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows). I observed leaders have quick, deep dives into certain areas to learn more about what constraints they deal with. While they can see the big picture and approach problems holistically, they have the disadvantage of relying on others in every detail. That’s why they gather people around them to learn more details quickly and untangle the puzzle’s complex parts. While doing so, instead of taking the decision, they bring their holistic thinking and big-picture vision to their teams so the teams can find a way out of uncertainty.
Their actions reduce the ambiguity today and build for tomorrow. This one is easier said than done. They build a culture, change it, and rebuild it. And most of the time, they explicitly admit that they don’t know. How these leaders approach the future is similar to a drawing by WaitButWhy with a tweak.
The only difference to the picture above is the leaders know where they want to reach but don’t know how to get there. That’s why, when asked, their answers are often vague and lack concrete solutions. Until now, they brought people on a path. And there are countless paths ahead. They can’t predict the future, yet they will lead others in one path of the many ahead. That’s why they focus on finding the best way in every junction and admit that they don’t have all the answers.
These are not the traits I observed, but they are the ones that make the difference and show how mature a leader is. The next time when you find yourself in an ambiguous situation, come back and read this. Accept the reality and tackle problems, as Anne Lamott put it, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
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