Authenticity is a word that is used a lot these days when it comes to culture. Leaders that are authentic are more likely to be looking forward and are easier for their teams to predict into the future. Their grounding can serve as a base for others to act from without needing to worry about unexpected pivots.
I have been fortunate in my career to work for a number of leaders that were both consistent and predictable. Did I always like their direction? Of course not. But knowing where they stood and the direction they wanted everyone to move in provided a lot of opportunities to drive things forward and still impact the direction.
One of my favorite ideas these days is “a bad decision is often better than no decision at all.”
Leaders that are inconsistent create an environment beneath the surface of indecision where there is often a lacking of accountability. When people don’t know what path they should take moving forward and leaders are not giving clear direction things quickly begin to stagnate and stop. Yes, activity continues but it is the continuation of past decisions and just keeping the lights turned on.
Innovation requires knowing where the path forward is. My favorite example of this currently is Microsoft during the Steve Balmer era versus where it is now under Satya Nadella. For a decade they lacked a strategic understanding other than “keep Windows dominate.” There wasn’t a future mission, it was all from the past. Now they have become an innovation monster. Their advances in every area they are focused on are moving entire industries forward and their brand has a cool factor it has long been missing. That’s the power of authenticity and decisiveness.
You don’t have to know what is going to happen. It’s your job to provide the culture and environment that allows everyone else to thrive and succeed.
Interesting to see the comment that a bad decision is better than no decision at all. That would correlate strongly with the Anglo Saxon western cultural view and a ‘driver’ social orientation.
Most people and most of the world would prefer to actively and patiently gather all the relevant information and make the right decision first time.
Undoing screw ups from quick decisions has been proving very challenging for Western society in recent decades.
Sometimes waiting before deciding brings benefits.
A bad decision being better than no decision is not going to always be the case – especially when taking a view smaller than an entire society. There are plenty of classes of decisions where taking too long on deciding something leads to negative consequences (lunch as an over-simplified example).
To your point, sometimes the time is an absolute must. But even when taking time to collect information, gain a consensus and generally be thoughtful in the approach there is a point where the decision still needs to be made. At that point additional time becomes negative. All processes must eventually come to a conclusion.
Taking action based on limited information is seen as positive in Western Culture. Managers in the US in particular see JFDI as a positive attribute. Leaping first, with limited information and without consensus is seen more negatively outside this culture. Doing nothing often enables problems to be solved without action. Acting with limited information often brings catastrophe. The US as a nation state (and unfortunately the UK in some cases) is notorious for this.
Agreed, that your view/ position does not need to be biased by what others want to hear, but communicating your view in respect of theirs helps their comprehension, demonstrates your understanding and potentially aids consensus.