Commit and lead!

Don’t sit on the edge… don’t!…. just don’t…

What we will talk about today is leadership and the need for commitment at all times. Commitment to the big things and to the small things.

We all have some common understanding of what it means when someone doesn’t commit. Usually, it means that someone doesn’t want to give you a date for the delivery of a project, they have restrains about an organisational transformation or any other change.

But this is only a surface-level commitment and I believe we should think about much more nuanced behaviour.

So what does it mean to commit? It means that we intend to act in a certain way in a scenario. We say that we will do something. However, commitment is not the words we use (i.e. literally saying “I will do this by Friday”), but the intention that you will actually do it, which is an important distinction.

Let’s say you don’t want to commit as a leader. These might be things you don’t do.

1) You don’t acknowledge.
2) You don’t clarify.
3) You don’t reassure.
4) You don’t trust.

5) Bonus: You don’t set up expectations nor give feedback

All of those are some form of a commitment and their absence is an absence of a commitment.

Imagine a situation. You have one to one and the person from your team tells you “This 3rd party is causing us constantly a lot of problems. They don’t reply and getting them to fix the issues is months long process causing our SLAs to fail.” Fairly straightforward conversation and a common issue to have.

Having this conversation is a request for support. And the support comes in different shapes. They might not want you to fix it immediately or give them a solution. They might be looking for an acknowledgement, which would lead them to feel like you are in the same boat and you have committed to the idea that the 3rd party is difficult to deal with.

They might not understand why the 3rd party is so difficult and you might give them an explanation or clarification. Which would mean that you have committed to a position. I.e. “They just went through an acquisition, a lot of people left and they are understaffed, so it might take a while before their service is back to normal”. The person now knows that YOU KNOW and that you have a mutual understanding of the situation. You committed to that understanding. Imagine how it would feel if you wanted to turn 180 on that statement one week later.

So what might your answer look like if you don’t commit? It might be something like “So you are saying that they are difficult, why do you think that is?”*

Now you might think, that you don’t know about the situation enough to make any form of statement and that is fine! Every new situation starts that way. And often we will change our position in light of new information. That’s just life. However, you want to do it transparently and consistently (i.e. with integrity).

The issue is that there is no sitting on the edge in commitment. You just can’t leave it for later. You have to come from that conversation committed to something. If you leave it at “So you say that they are difficult, why do you think that is?” you haven’t committed to anything. You haven’t even committed to believing the member of your team is telling you the truth!**

All of these non-commital situations lead to a massive amount of uncertainty. As the person asking for support, you have no idea knowing where you stand. You will start thinking “Have they believed me? Why did they leave the conversation just hanging? If there is an issue next time, is this on me? Should I have done something? But I feel like I’ve tried everything! They haven’t even told me anything else to try!”

The uncertainty leads to anxiety and stress, which leads to a decrease in mental capability, which leads to stupid mistakes, which leads to shame and fear that it will happen again, which leads to more anxiety, which leads to more stress… you get the picture. Then the person is less likely and more fearful to bring issues up with you because they already feel unease and if they do and you again sit on the edge it will make them spiral even faster. One year later, the person is a shell of what they used to be through the constant uncertainty and stress and you might be thinking that they are just good enough for the job.

As a leader, you can create this, but also you can break that cycle. The tricky part is that if you don’t commit and sit on the edge this is what you are creating, so YOU HAVE TO COMMIT! That is a difficult part of the leadership. You have to commit even though you might not feel certain to.

And if you are thinking “How can I commit to things I’m not sure of?!”. You are a member of someone’s team, right? Do you have a manager or a board (yes, this is for all the CEOs of the world) that supports you? Just think about it. You might expect things from your people that you can’t follow or you get something you don’t give to others.



*Do not confuse leadership with coaching, those are two very different relationships and both are important. If you position yourself as a coach, you are not committing to anything in that conversation. Understanding when to lead and when to coach is also not an easy task. However, if you try to coach when you should lead, people are going to have a bad time.

**The only case when it works is that you have such a strong, trusting relationship both sides believe that the element of reassurance and acknowledgement is there by default. In my experience, this takes a lot of effort from both sides and a long time to develop.