The Importance of Presence in Leadership

Photo by Alejandro Barba on Unsplash

Word Count: About 600, approximate reading time 3 to 5 minutes.  Please share your thoughts in the comments.  Please be kind and subscribe to my newsletter.

At the suggestion of several readers, the frequency of this newsletter is changing to biweekly to allow time for more thoughtful and nuanced content development.

Lison Mage’s newsletter, Brain Food, is interesting reading.  In a recent edition, she talks about The Dark Dot Test.  A group of students was given a piece of paper with a single black dot on the page.  When asked to describe the page, all the students described the dot.  They all talked about the dot – its size, shape, color, etc.  None of the students spoke about the piece of paper or the potential for using the blank space.

The lesson is that when we narrow our focus to a single thing, we lose sight of all that surrounds it.  The old saying is, “You do not see the forest because of the trees.”  This natural human behavior presents a double risk for leaders.  Leaders must make sure they look beyond the dot.  They also have to ensure their teams look at the broader situation.  Every member of the team will see the challenge from a different perspective.  Exploring these different points of view will give everyone a much clearer picture.  This leads to consensus on the true nature of the circumstances and enables leaders to build a shared call to action, which leads to success.  As a leader, you must be present in the moment to fully comprehend all points of view.  A leader must also work to ensure everyone else is present and engaged.  

A great analogy of this is defining the color blue.  The Crayola color wheel has 19 different kinds of blue.  They include blue, blue green, blue violet, cornflower, Prussian (later Midnight), navy, sky, ultra, cerulean, teal, and outer space.  When leaders see something that is blue, they must take care to understand what shade of blue they are seeing.  Then leaders work to make sure that everyone else agrees on the specific shade of blue.  Defining blue is more difficult when one person is looking at the crayons on the table, another is looking at the paint on the walls, someone else is looking at the color of your shirt, and the daydreamer is thinking about the shiny new blue car he wants to buy.

The Curse of Knowledge

MIT Sloan School of Management published an article describing why experts have trouble explaining their work to people who are non-experts.  The reason is quite simple.  All of us have spent years, or decades, becoming experts in our fields.  We think in details and nuances.  Non-experts do not have the context needed to understand the details.  Without a grasp of the details, nuance is incomprehensible.

Good communication is the key to bridging the gap.  Experts and leaders must distill the details they have mastered into concepts others can understand.  These must be sequenced correctly and with the proper context to give non-experts a foundation for discussion.  The best way to do this is to tell a good story.  Good stories in business set a foundation that allows everyone to come to a consensus on the situation, resulting in a call to action that the team supports.

What I’m Up To

The neighborhood I live in has many trails and parks. We are working with the developer to build a sculpture. This week we installed five new art pieces, bringing our total to seven. In the fall, we plan to add five more. As the community continues to be developed, we expect the number of displays to double. Our goal is to make our Arlington, Texas community a destination for artists to display their work. It’s a great privilege to live in a neighborhood where we can come together as a community.

Quote of the Week

“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”

– Anais Nin

The Leader With A Thousand Faces is available on Amazon.

My goal is to make this newsletter as interesting and valuable as possible.  Please share your thoughts and suggestions for improvement.  If there are specific topics in leadership you would like me to focus on in future issues, please send them my way.

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