The Clear Leader
说清楚、讲明白的领导者(3/3)
The Clear Leadership
If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear
Keep score of your core
Having told his people that their strength lay in the intelligence, insight and creativity of the frontline employees, Anderson took the required next step and identified the one score that would track their progress toward a better future: the number of actively productive employees. Although Best Buy’s success could be measured in a variety of different ways, the company uses 12 simple questions to measure just that number. A score is actionable and unambiguous.
If you want to be clear, act
Of course, a leader must take action—this leads to impact. But actions also possess a separate, equally powerful quality. Unlike theoretical pronouncements about “core values” and “mission statements,” actions are unambiguous. If you, the leader, can highlight a few carefully selected actions, then we will simply look to see what actions you take and found our faith and confidence on these.
When Rudy Giuliani was elected mayor of New York, he instituted a twice-weekly meeting in which more than 100 senior police officers would gather. Giuliani declared that these meetings encouraged accountability and transparency, but the meetings’ real power was that they disrupted routines. Action changes behavior. It makes people realize that the world is going to be different because they’re doing different things. The future becomes clearer, and out of that clarity comes confidence.
Effective leaders don’t have to be passionate or charming or brilliant. What they must be is clear—clarity is the essence of great leadership. Show us where our core strength lies, show us which score we should focus on and which actions we must take, and we will reward you by working our hears out to make our better future come true.
Vocabulary Focus
Frontline (adj) relating to the most important position in a field
Unambiguous (adj) having a single clearly defined meaning
Found (v) to base a belief on something
Accountability (n) 责任感
Discussion Question
After the three-days article, how to be a clear leader seems isn’t very clear. To be a clear leader, first, be clear about your business, then explain to others and act clearly, do you agree?
Extra Exercise
1. Translate the following sentence into Chinese, ‘If you, the leader, can highlight a few carefully selected actions, then we will simply look to see what actions you take and found our faith and confidence on these.’
2. According to the recording, give an example of catch phrases used by leader?