Part of being a good leader is knowing the direction to take and having faith in the reasons behind your decisions. Clarity is not an easy quality to cultivate because in today’s world, every person who is given responsibilities finds themselves struggling with priorities. Once your priorities are unclear and you don’t know where your business is going, you have very little chance of achieving success because you don’t have clarity.
The Power of Clarity
Defined, clarity refers to coherence and being able to think and decide clearly and sharply. How important is clarity in a leader? According to David Sandler of Sandler Training, having clarity is a leader’s most important task. The lack of personal and organizational clarity will breed complacency, dissatisfaction, poor productivity, and higher turnover.
Clarity is not about having goals but about having a roadmap to achieve those goals. It’s not saying “I want to be successful” but saying “I will be successful by winning 3 more major clients and improving revenue by 50% this year” and having the plan in place on how you will achieve your goals.
You can ask yourself 3 simple questions to clarify your plan for success.
- What are my specific business goals?
- How will my work help me achieve those goals?
- How can my team help me achieve those goals?
Having clarity starts with dreaming big as suggested by Dr. Martin Luther King but going further by being clear about what you want. When are able to stretch your dreams and turn them into something purposeful, you turn into an effective leader.
What It Takes To Have Clarity
- Think independently
- Think with courage and imagination
- Learn to visualize your goals
- Take the time to reflect on your next steps and decisions on your own and away from the noise and stress of daily life
- Recruit people to be on your team and ready to work with you in complete agreement with your goals and strategies
More specifically, you need to write down everything that’s racing through your mind. Then, learn to cut down the list so what is left in your list are those things you cannot do without. Often, we are bombarded with so much pressure to own things and achieve recognition – not just from others but from ourselves. If you can strip down this list, you will get a clearer picture of what you want from life and be able to remove the overlaps that tend to drag us into a confusing mindset.
Once you have this narrowed-down list, you can set aside the time on your own to think of ways to achieve your goals. Be careful to avoid over-planning because this kind of micro-managing could put too much strain on you and turn you into a different kind of leader – the kind that cares for nothing but achieving goals.
[tweetthis]Clarity in a leader works better if there is compassion[/tweetthis]Clarity in a leader works better if there is compassion. Compassion for yourself, for others, and for the business. Without compassion, you will not understand your team and why they are working for you. You will not be able to tie their personal goals with your business goals. Without feeling or showing compassion for their needs, you remove them from the equation which will cause a drop in their motivation.
Clarity with compassion will lead to better accountability and specific measurements. In addition, by having compassion, you get to understand the dynamics of your team and employees. The common trend in many businesses is a tendency to have conflicting ideas about the direction, processes, and strategies. Office politics is really just different people with different agendas and it could be eliminated by having a clear objective and compassion for each other’s needs.
If you want to be recognised as a true leader who is effective, professional, and sincere, you can start by having clarity.
To discover more about getting clarity in your leadership through 1:1 coaching, get in touch with me for an initial free call. Alternatively, if you would like to support your team getting clear about the team’s vision and goals, call me to discuss how I might support you with a team coaching day.
