Improving leadership effectiveness by cultivating clarity
Leaders are expected to establish the vision, inspire to action, and communicate with clarity.
Citizens expect this from their political leaders.
Customers, employees, and shareholders expect this from the CEO and key executives of an organization.
Unfortunately, there are lots of examples of leaders who fail to engage others because they can’t communicate it with clarity.
It is uninspiring to witness a leader fumble over an explanation of something important. In fact, it likely has the opposite effect of turning people away.
A poorly communicated message may appear as being irrelevant. It may appear that the leader doesn’t care.
Effective leaders understand the value of clarity when communicating a message.
The Value of Clarity
As a differentiating value, Clarity means clearness; free from obscurity and easy to understand.
These three components of clarity provide some important clues for leaders who want to effectively communicate a message:
1) Create clearness by being transparent. Have nothing to hide, and no hidden agenda.
2) Remove all obscurity by striping away extraneous items. Ensure nothing is in the way of what you want others to see.
3) Make it easy to understand by keeping it simple. Do the hard work upfront of removing complexity, and communicate only the points that matter.
Leaders can learn a lot from master marketers who have figured out how to distill a message to its core, and make it easy to remember. There’s a reason many of us can repeat famous brand slogans (such as Nike’s “Just do it”) or hum a popular jingle (such as Coke’s “It’s the real thing”).
Or it might be as simple as thinking in terms of the well-known invitation “Won’t you be my neighbor?”
Deep and Simple
Fred Rogers was the TV host of “Mister Rogers Neighborhood”. He was a powerfully quiet leader who made a significant difference in the lives of millions of children – and adults.
On the topic of clarity, Rogers made the statement:
“Deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex.”
Rogers’ show addressed many complex issues, but always made it easy to understand. This may be why it was the longest running program on public television, producing more than 900 episodes between 1968 and 2001.
For his many contributions, Rogers was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2003 the U.S. Senate unanimously passed Resolution 16 to commemorate the life of Fred Rogers, where it states:
“Through his spirituality and placid nature, Mr. Rogers was able to reach out to our nation’s children and encourage each of them to understand the important role they play in their communities and as part of their families. More importantly, he did not shy away from dealing with difficult issues of death and divorce but rather encouraged children to express their emotions in a healthy, constructive manner, often providing a simple answer to life’s hardships.”
Mr. Rogers was an effective leader who understood and cultivated the value of clarity.
How can the value of clarity improve your leadership?
