📝 usncan Note: Why We Must Redefine Leadership Now
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We’ve entered an era where the leadership playbook hasn’t just aged — it’s collapsing under its own irrelevance.
We’ve slowly shifted from leading through change to leading through chaos. Outside forces—economic instability, tech disruption, climate threats, societal tension—have created constant upheaval. Inside our organizations, the confusion is just as thick: layered hierarchies, fuzzy responsibilities, performative collaboration, and contradictory expectations.
And when people are overwhelmed by chaos, they look to leadership for one thing: clarity.
But increasingly, what they find instead are leaders struggling to speak plainly, define priorities, or even make decisions.
This isn’t a failure of character. It’s a failure of the system we’ve built around leadership. One that constantly pushes contradictions leaders find impossible to navigate.
When chaos becomes the norm, clarity becomes the leader’s greatest responsibility.
iStock-Jacob Wackerhausen
Leadership in a Straitjacket
Today’s leaders are operating in a straitjacket of risk mitigation and corporate performance. They’re told to lead boldly—within tight boundaries. Speak clearly—but only after five rounds of review. Move fast—but also secure broad approval.
The fear of being too direct, speaking up, or lacking consensus is a real barrier to leadership effectiveness, slowing decision-making, eroding trust, and reducing team performance. Research consistently shows that embracing clear, candid communication—even when it’s uncomfortable—is essential to lead effectively, create psychological safety, and drive organizational agility and innovation. Avoidance, underpinned by fear, slowly erodes our ability to lead at all.
In fact, recently leadership surveys found two in three (67%) leaders were hesitant to speak up with their own point of view. And nearly half (45%) are unwilling to give feedback to their direct reports or managers. This fear—of saying the wrong thing, of being too direct, of not having total consensus—is slowly eroding our ability to lead at all.
The Cost of Not Saying What Needs to Be Said
Let’s be blunt: we’re not challenging the status quo enough. We’re avoiding tough conversations, dodging direct feedback, and dancing around decisions. And in doing so, we’ve created workplaces full of ambiguity.
Gallup’s 2024 Q12 Employee Engagement Survey reveals only 46% of employees clearly know what is expected of them at work. This rampant ambiguity is an urgent leadership failure—we must lead with clarity, set clear priorities, and stabilize roles to cut through the chaos and drive real progress.
When leaders don’t clearly define who does what, how decisions get made, or what actually matters—teams default to doing everything, the safest thing, or nothing. And that’s how we end up with overstuffed calendars, bloated projects, and teams stuck in a cycle of reactivity and little forward movement.
Gallup further estimates complexity and lack of clarity costs companies over $550 billion a year in lost productivity and profit.
Clarity isn’t a soft skill. It’s become a strategic advantage.
The Courage to Speak Up – with Clarity, Simplicity, Boldness
We don’t need superhuman leaders. We need a system that allows real leadership to thrive.
And that starts with the courage to speak with clarity.
Why? Clarity is the antidote to chaos. It tells people what matters, where we’re going, and how we’ll get there. It defines roles, priorities, decisions, and responsibilities. It cuts through the fog and says: “Here’s what we’re doing. Here’s what we’re not. Here’s why it matters.”
But what does that look like in practice?
Clarity means:
- Clarifying the path forward (WHY): In uncertain times, people don’t need guarantees—they need direction. Share the “why” behind key choices and be honest about what’s changing, and what’s not.
- Defining meaningful work (WHAT): Identify what activities directly tie to strategic goals—and cut the rest. Ask, “Is this task moving us forward or just filling time?”
- Clarifying roles and decisions (WHO): Everyone should know what they own, what they influence, and what they don’t. Use a simple RACI model (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) or decision-rights grid to make it visible.
- Clarifying behaviors (HOW): What does good performance look like here? What does it mean to take initiative? To collaborate well? Define those behaviors openly and reinforce them often.
Companies that do this well see powerful results.
A Bain study found that organizations with clearly defined decision rights are 95% more likely to deliver strong financial performance. Meanwhile, Effectory, an employee feedback company, reports that lack of role clarity is a top reason teams fail to execute strategy effectively.
What It Looks Like in Action
At Merck Canada, leaders tackled email overload with one simple change: they introduced the tag “NNTR” (No Need To Reply) at the beginning of all informational emails. This subtle shift reduced internal email volume by 13% and eliminated hundreds of hours spent replying with “thanks” or “got it,” allowing employees to focus on more meaningful communication.
Netflix approached meeting fatigue with similar clarity. By capping meetings at 30 minutes and eliminating one-way information dumps, they saw recurring meetings drop by 65%. This streamlining of collaboration not only reduced wasted time but also significantly boosted employee satisfaction.
These aren’t sweeping policy reforms or elaborate frameworks. They’re simple, decisive actions born from leaders willing to create clarity—and remove what no longer serves the work.
A Call to Act
We don’t need more frameworks, we need freedom to act. And that comes from clarity. Clarity gives people courage. It gives teams focus. It gives organizations momentum.
So let this be our call to arms:
Let’s stop hiding behind consensus. Let’s start saying what needs to be said—plainly, respectfully, and without fear. Let’s have the courage to lead with clarity: Simplify the work. Outline the priorities. Define the rules. Because in a world where leading through chaos is increasingly the norm, clarity isn’t optional.
