11. When Clarity Lands

Everyone wants to be part of something meaningful. Not everyone wants to be the one to make the meaningful decision. 

You re-read the invite before you get up to go to the meeting. A familiar greyness settles in your stomach. Your chest tightens and weighs more. Your brow furrows into concentration mode as you walk in, your calves and hamstrings tight.

This one always arrives early. They offer to help the set up.

The next one is also early but doesn’t meet your eye. They look at their watch so that everyone can see that they were early.

The others flow in as you get the slide deck up on screen.

You sit down at the centre of everyone’s line of sight.

Eyes on you. Some confident. Some doubtful. Some with you. Others not. All expectant.

Quick nano-second check. Your team. Are they up for this?

- Knowledge. Wisdom. Data. Smarts:  yes, in the room.

- Shared Purpose. Shared Values. Common sense: right now, not so sure.

Deep breath.

“Okay. Let’s do this … “

The purpose of the meeting is stated shortly. Everyone dutifully re-reads the invite.   The chronology is recited. Everyone knows it off by heart.   The external reaction is restated. Everyone knows this off by heart too.   The early diagnosis of the who, what, how is repeated. Everyone has seen this report.   The top and bottom-line consequences of the external reaction are highlighted. With. Emphasis. People start nodding in agreement even before you finish.   This is why they turned up. Had to. … Beat …  Everyone starts to rehearse expressions of dismay, concern, anger, blame, willingness. None of this performance moves the dial forward a single notch.

You start projecting forward beyond this meeting.

- Success/Failure?

- Glory/Shame?

You shake the doubt away and start asking questions, just to check that the problem is real and yours to fix.

It’s also useful for you to do your own basic diagnostic:

- Experience … Skills … Education …Practice… : what exactly is in your toolkit today?

If you were a manager, you would do just that – manage, and meet pre-set expectations and drive along pre-set routes with pre-prepared resources and options to deal with forecast problems. The boss could sort it.

When you were executing a predefined strategy (an “executive”) in a static environment made up of predictabilities, it was different. You were a living embodiment of a pre-defined (but complex) decision tree.  With you wearing that hat, the boss can sort it.

But today, here and now, you are a leader.  The leader. 

You have to lead. Through uncertainty. Through chaos. Through difficulty. 

People reporting to you expect of you. The people you report to expect of you.

You don’t feel too good with the weight of this meeting, this decision.

Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault. But it’s all your responsibility. Which means it’s all your fault.

Your head, gut, and heart manically review everything in your toolkit, everything that you’ve ever picked up and seen to help sort this.  Is this like that time when ...? Did my mentor mention this kind of thing before? I can’t recall this from my Masters …?

At the same time, you are keeping your face and body  … calm but concerned; open but focussed; ready but not panicked; in control but ready for collaboration  … the “Leader” posture you’ve chosen.

Your head is sprinting. Your gut tightens. Your body readies. Your eyes and ears absorbing it all, the data, the words, the voices, the emotion, the facial expressions, the interaction, the patterns. You put it all on your internal whiteboard and peer at it while keeping your game-face on.

And then.

You realise something. It feels like a physical landing. A light just behind the eyes. Weightlessness entering the chest.

You check it. Is this right? Does it feel right?

- Brain, Heart, Gut – all three say Yes.

It fits.

You allow the noise to die a little, to dissipate more of the unhelpful energy. You sit up straight and wait a second. And say “We could try this …”

And as you speak, you see the light that had landed behind your eyes, also land in the room. Eyes narrow in absorption.  Pens and phones go down. Keyboards go silent. You can feel and almost hear the processing. Everyone leans back. 

Smiles start to return. The ones who were always with you smile a lot. Those who weren’t start to nod, or at least aren't undermining the new consensus. A pause. And then one voice starts “Yes, and then we can …”.

The machine has restarted. It’s back online. You’ve done your bit. 

There is a happy busyness as everyone automatically acquiesces to the new logic. That the new path “just makes sense”.  Not without trade-offs — one or two in this room will carry those more than others. But the direction is clear and the stuck is now unstuck.

The meeting ends naturally and they leave talking and overall much lighter in their step.

You take a minute closing down the tech and the lights. That was so stressful. But to get the team up and going and excited again after all the heaviness about trying to unravel that decision knot? Worth it. Every day of the week.  

That moment of changing the room - restarting the machine, reframing the new logic for everything to make sense to everyone that matters - that moment is what I came to do.  And what I offer.