This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Dr. Karen Palasek, Director of Educational and Academic Programs for the John Locke Foundation.

Opening Themes

All information is good information. Particularly if it’s clear, and communication is a two-way street.

If there is a troll hiding under the bridge, I want to know about it before I attempt to cross; if there is a leprechaun, I likewise want to know. I’m abstracting from the view that I might deliberately put on blinders. So “good” is good in the sense of useful, not necessarily “welcome.” All information is good information.

In the course of acting as the Director of Educational and Academic Programs at the John Locke Foundation, I have had the pleasure to direct our E.A. Morris Fellowship for Emerging Leaders program. In this column, I’d like to share what I think are the most insightful points we have gleaned from just a few of our opening leadership discussions. I’ll also have some comments on why I think these are significant, especially from an information, or more precisely a clarity, perspective.

Exposition

By no means exhaustive, here are my picks for the best points to come out of our Fellowship sessions so far:

1. Three guiding insights, what author and leadership coach Marcus Buckingham calls “controlling insights,” are critical to excellence in leadership, in management, and in sustained individual success. They identify the difference in focus between managing and leading, and argue that different strengths apply to each. Each offers a perspective that is specific to its own category, but universally true within it.

Thus, great leaders all “discover what is universal, and capitalize on it,” while great managers “discover what is unique about each person, and capitalize on it.” For sustained individual success, it is necessary to “discover what you don’t like doing, and stop doing it.”

Communication processes are paramount. Leaders must above all be clear, not just informative. This means that the vision, the strategic storyline, the quest, the mission statement, the group’s motto or slogan, the organization’s hero, or what the Fellowship is about — some “same truth we all care about,” is articulated and understood by everyone in the group.

2. Six questions about the issues that are most strongly linked to productivity and excellence:
Do I know what is expected of me in my organization?
Do I have the materials and equipment that I need to do my work right?
Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
Does my supervisor, or someone in my organization, seem to care about me as a person?
Is there someone in my organization who encourages my development?

I see the above questions as appropriate for supervisor/managers in a regular manager-employee exchange. I would argue strongly that this is neither a paper-and-pencil exercise, nor a group discussion. In keeping with a build-on-your-strengths approach, it seems very clear that management is a set of strengths, not a job slot.

3. How’s the organization doing? Does it know who it serves? Does it understand its core strength? Does it have a core score? Are there (what are the) actions it can take today?

The leadership and management literature are vast, and the above is just one model out of many, many models available to measure, within the organization, what is targeted, what is required, what is accomplished, and what is being done to advance toward the group’s goals. The importance of measurement, even when difficult, persists. And if happiness and job performance are linked, as analysts contend, productivity and performance can never be at their best — moving effectively toward a better future.

4. The individual strengths assessment. There are lots of personal and professional assessment tools out there. The Clifton StrengthsFinder is just one, but if strengths are hard-wired and stable over time, it makes sense to discover that information and use it in the pursuit of excellence.

5. Culture is ultra-important. Here is how one blogger expressed it:

“…Edgar Schein noted a decade ago: cultures are largely created and modified by the actions of the organisation’s leaders. And here we view leadership in its broadest sense as someone who people take notice of and follow their lead. There are a relatively small set of things leaders do that affect culture:

* What leaders pay attention to, measure, and control on a regular basis
* How leaders react to critical incidents and organisational crises
* How leaders allocate resources
* Deliberate role modelling, teaching, and coaching
* How leaders allocate rewards and status
* How leaders recruit, select, promote, and excommunicate”

In any organization, everyone knows what the culture is.

Thematic Dissonance

Here are some last thoughts about the issues mentioned above, and glitches that make the train run poorly.

If good leadership demands clarity, then poor leadership, or failed leadership, obfuscates. Leaders not only need to articulate a vision, they need to transform peoples’ anxiety about the uncertain future into confidence in a better future. To generate buy-in, it is widely recognized that the vision must be presented and communicated as clearly as possible.

That brings me to performance-inhibiting practices — especially being unclear, whether intentional or not. When different people perceive identical messages differently, information is misinterpreted. It’s hard to compensate for that fact, and things get muddy.

Also problematic is unnecessarily vague, needlessly withheld, and arbitrarily distributed information. If there is no strategic or confidentiality requirement to limit information about the group to the group, why distribute it selectively? “Is this useful or necessary?” is a question that could be asked more often. clarification case in point: ‘this’ above means ‘this limitation’

Resolution and Finale

Information fosters either greater clarity or appropriate questions seeking clarity — both are good things. If we are interested in good leadership and good performance from groups in which we collaborate, taking steps to sharpen the picture of that better future through better leadership should definitely make a difference. Putting the pieces of that process to work is a topic worth discussion as well as action.