Bushe - Clear Leadership

Clear Leadership - How Outstanding Leaders Make Themselves Understood, Cut Through the Mush, and Help Everyone Get Real at Work
Gervase Bushe

Clear leadership is about creating clarity in every interaction &
every group you are a part of. It requires understanding the nature of
experience & the reasons for the difficulty involved in getting people
to tell the truth of their experience to one another.

Experience is the moment to moment streams of observations, thoughts,
feelings, and desires we are having.

We alone are responsible for our own experiences.

To help others succeed in a culture of collaboration, we must build
cultures of clarity.

Instead of clear leadership (direct communication) we make up stories
about people's experience, which Busche calls "sense making"

Interpersonal mush is based on stories people make up about one
another and have not checked out.

Most people don't describe what is going on within themselves unless
they are asked. We haven't been taught to describe our experience.


When I mess up there is typically an external reason (justification).
When others screw up we often blame something that is internal
(they're lazy, unorganized, incompetent). We have to begin seeing
others' mistakes as the likely result of an external factor.

When I judge myself I do so based on the intentions I had. When I
judge others, I do it on the basis of the effect you have on me.
Unless I ask, I don't know what your intentions were.

The stories we make up tend to be negative.

Projection - we tend to see outside ourselves what is inside ourselves.

No matter what is getting in the way of collaborative work
relationships, there's one solution that almost always makes it
better:increasing interpersonal clarity.

Interpersonal clarity describes an interaction in which people know
what their own experience is, what another person's experience is, &
the difference between the two.

To achieve interpersonal clarity, the two people need to have a
"learning conversation" in which all parties have an opportunity to
describe their experience and tell the stories that they have created
in their own minds.

It is easy to become unaware of a story as it develops in your mind.
It is key to be on alert as you begin to think something about why
someone responded a certain way or is acting a certain way. You have
to have a "learning conversation" and ask questions/seek clarity!

1. Become critically aware of your own experience

2. We think the stories we're making up about the other person are
accurate (or close enough) when in actuality the stories we make up
tend to be worse than the reality. We have to find out what is going
on in the other person's head.

3. Uncover your part in creating the problem.  In any problem
situation, assume that you are part of the problem (it's not just the
other person's fault).

Enter learning conversations with an attitude of inquiry and with the
mindset that everyone's is having a different experience that no one
can know about unless they ask & listen.

Start By describing your observations, feelings, & wants. Describe
your experience in a way that invites the sharing of the other persons
experience in hopes for clarity.

No one else is ever to blame for someone else's experience...don't
allow for defensiveness.

Once each person's experience is described and explored, begin
discussing the here and now experience.

Hold learning conversations in front of the entire team.

Clear leaders are willing to listen until they understand & can
demonstrate understanding but they are not willing to have their
agenda emotionally hijacked by others.

The only people authorities can influence to be real with them are the
ones with whom they have made an effort to personally interact and who
have learned that the leaders are trustworthy.

Those who do not get a chance to test the authorities' trustworthiness
will always be cautious around that leader.

When a leader holds himself responsible for the experience of his
subordinates, he will not be able to make hard decisions or stay
focused on an objective.

Don't take responsibility for other people's feelings (or experiences)

A clear leader needs to be able to hear the misery she is causing
people as she forces them to adopt a new and better technology and not
lose her vision because of it. Clear leaders can't be fused with
people they lead or they will either cave into other peoples emotions
or avoid hearing them altogether.

Clear leaders take the position I am responsible for the impact I have
on you I am response for the impact you have on me

What we see in others is mainly ourselves, reflected back to us. You
can't lead learning and social systems if you don't understand this.