Ambiguity : Why Good Leaders Thrive

#ambiguity #leadership #values #coaching

CHAPTER I

It is fascinating to see that how some leaders thrive in ambiguity and many just can’t handle it. I hypothesized that the explanation must lie in neurological make up of individuals. So, I went down the rabbit hole, hoping to find conclusive studies to explain such difference in performance of some very talented individuals.

It appears that at a fundamental level dealing with ambiguity is an issue of ethics and the key differentiator is a leader’s philosophical make up than anything else. As a fan of David Deutsch’s??optimism?, this coalescing of HR, Neurology and Philosophy was a thrilling find.?

Those familiar with works of Jean Paul Sartre and Simone De Beauvoir will hopefully find it easy to process the conclusions that I drew up. Here is what I believe happens –

• ?Many leaders act in Bad Faith (mauvais foi).?To quote Sartre who coined it first to explain key concepts of ‘existentialism’ ( it is not the same ‘bad faith’ that is used in popular lexicon esp. in law or insurance) -

“…bad faith?(mauvaise foi) is the psychological phenomenon whereby individuals act?inauthentically, by yielding to the external pressures of society to adopt false?values and disown their innate freedom as sentient human beings.

?Bad faith?is a big ‘existential pain’ that gets in the way of pretty much every great deed that requires looking beyond one’s self interest. It’s rooted in our reptilian brain and managing it is not easy as it breeds on ‘self-deception’ where we believe that we have less choices than we actually have. That explains why Sartre famously said that we are condemned to be free.

Even if you don’t want to hear any more from an existentialist, atheist who believed that life has no intrinsic meaning, you can’t deny that the inevitable way to move forward in the wake of any ambiguity is to make a ‘choice’. Sartre’s framework of good faith provokes you to make that choice in a way that comes from your ‘free’ self.

In decision science, a good decision’s key hallmark is being one that’s most closely aligned with core values of a leader however, the concept of bad faith is much deeper than just misalignment with one’s values. Bad Faith is insidiously deceptive and requires full strength of character exercised over a long period of time to ‘transcend’. Read on..

• Is it even possible to create an ethical framework based on the concept of Bad Faith? Sartre believed that it was possible through ‘Transcendence’, the agency vested in all humans through which they move beyond the facts, complexity, ambiguity of any given situation or even beyond of themselves (one’s past, beliefs, experiences etc. ).

Yet, this agency is not used by all, all the time. In fact, our ‘freedom’ to make the choices in good faith often falls prey to expediency, leading to acts of bad faith. A bad faith action often begets more such actions by stakeholders unless one decides to ‘transcend’ and break the cycle by acting in ‘good faith’ (like a great leader).

• So, what about dealing with ambiguity that arises when the future impact of our actions are unknown; even if one did not act in bad faith and took an authentic, transcendental decision? Enters Simone De Beauvoir!?

A lifelong companion of Sartre, her seminal work ‘Ethics of Ambiguity’ expands Sartre’s ideas and tackles many questions that naturally arose through Sartre’s existentialism.

Simone argued that –

• ?We can truly be free only when we are willing to experience the stress of acting free and to take complete responsibility of the choices that we make.
• All of us need to act in good faith for everyone’s freedom to be preserved. In other words, a true good faith act should enable others to act in good faith as well. She famously wrote -“to will oneself free is also to will others free”.?
• “One can reveal the world only on a basis revealed by other men” said differently nothing ‘subjective’ is truly ever subjective. Our subjectivity is a by-product of our interpretation of the world, done so through our relations with people around us. If they fail, we fail and vice versa.

Summary:

Leadership is about taking ‘good ‘decisions in the face of ambiguity. A good decision is one that delivers with least drain on resources and is most future proof and we know that in a typical ambiguous situation, there is never enough data to ensure either.?

A good leader is a work in progress as they are trying to ‘transcend’ every day and are enjoying the process. A good leader has good advisors, mentors and coaches and continues to draw from their interpretation of the world but takes decisions with full responsibility. They draw from their core values and do not act in ‘bad faith’ and provide psychological safety to those around them to inspire them to do the same.

All of this is hard work! Most great leaders work very hard to acquire certain level of expertise in their field and then they work even harder to define their core values in a way that its liberating to all. Be that leader!!

CHAPTER II

An effective leader is someone with a very high ambiguity tolerance and conversely a poor leader often has a penchant for black and white.

The term VUCA (the famous acronym for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) is??over 30 years old and is holding its ground still because the world is getting only more VUCAish and yet most organizations don’t help their potential leaders in being better in dealing with ambiguity. Sure, there is enough talk about it being a critical leadership competency and there is that one odd ‘training programme’ that future leaders ( HIPOs) get sent to but it is tragic to see??so much organizational potential wasted when its top talent hits that ceiling beyond which ambiguity is the norm and dealing with it effectively is the only way forward.?

I see it all the time! Great employees asking too many questions and managers muttering ‘I don’t know either, go figure’ under their frustrated breaths. Often, the employee is asking for more information, more data but the manager knows that it’s the adequate ‘context’ which is needed not more data. And it is incredibly harder to articulate the context than just throwing more data any way. Better sense of context, among others, is also a function of experience and hierarchy – both in turn are a function of time; in other words there are a few things that an employee would learn only with time but sadly for a manager , that’s not an answer that they can give.

What a manager can do instead is to provide a net of psychological safety to the employee while they are trying to deal with the ambiguity. This helps in building a culture of high ‘ambiguity-tolerance’ and can in fact reverse the standard ‘fight-flight’ syndrome into a fun soaked, adventurous learning experience. This is how a culture of innovation is built – by trusting your top performers with their ‘tinkering’ and in some cases even rewarding it.?

Here is a model that I have used to help anyone in my team struggling with ambiguity –

Fun Fact:?There are Psychometric tests that you can take to measure ambiguity tolerance. This was first devised by Budner S. in 1962 who famously defined ambiguity tolerance as ’tendency to perceive ambiguous situations as desirable’. Mclain’s test devised in 1993 is considered more reliable. Check it out?here.

Sadly, most good managers just end up working very hard to create that safety net for their teams leading to exhaustion and burn out because their leaders don’t have their back. Because ‘innovation’ is a dish cooked in the cauldron of culture and creating a safe space for a sincere tinkering is the spice added by leadership. Many leaders fall short and end up cascading their stress down the hierarchy.

So how do we fix it?

For many organizations investment in growing their leaders is often not a key priority. And even if they do, most leadership courses focus heavily on decision making in the face of ambiguity vs enabling leaders to look deep within and critically evaluate their beliefs. Many organizations invest a lot of energy and resources in developing mentorship programmes that often fail as they don’t offer the crucial element of psychological safety to mentees and most mentors don’t know how to mentor. An enterprise-wide programme that enables access to good coaches to future leaders is a great investment. Go for it !