An Introduction to the Virtues of Ethical Leadership Part 7 – The Virtue of Clarity

The Virtue of Clarity
By Chad Weinstein

This is part 7 in a series on The Virtues of Ethical Leadership.  Find links to earlier parts here.  https://ethinact.com/blog-post-series/

The Virtue of Clarity enables us to make sense of things, and to help others do the same.  Clarity helps us identify the relevant features of a situation.  It enables us to engage others in developing a common understanding of goals, circumstances, or plans.  Achieving Clarity requires a range of skills; maintaining our Clarity and focus amid the myriad of potential distractions requires willpower as well as ability.

Clarity is the difference between a daydream and a vision.  The leader with vision has “done the homework” to define goals, objectives, and means for achieving them.  Such leaders engage others in sharing and expanding their vision, and they maintain focus on realizing it over time.

Clarity helps leaders with analysis and assessment, as well.  The leader with Clarity (and related competencies) understands how data becomes information, and how that information should inform judgements and decisions.  She knows when to act with limited information, and when to wait for more.  She understands how to manage risk, consistent with a broader vision and strategy, and informed by the best available information about the situation at hand.  Clarity helps us make sense of the myriad of data and information that surrounds us.

Finally, the Virtue of Clarity applies to our values, both individual and shared.  Circumstances are often dynamic, and often beyond our control.  Our values, by contrast, should be steady, but not necessarily static, and very much within our control.  We choose what we stand for, and why.  Achieving and maintaining Clarity about one’s own values is part of being a moral person.  Understanding and upholding organizational values is a key responsibility shared by organizational leaders.  Life tests our commitment to our values: do we really put family first, or support a local charity, or give up a potentially lucrative contract – when our values require us to do so?  How about when our short-term interests or desires conflict with our values?  Moral clarity may begin with abstract reflection, but it really counts when real issues are at stake.

Professionals and leaders of all stripes depend on Clarity to guide their actions.  One seasoned police officer described the exercise of a particular kind of Clarity in his daily work: “one of the most important decisions I make is whether I’m talking to a bad kid, or to a dumb kid who’s started hanging around with bad kids.  They may be acting the same way, but they need different things from me.”  I believe he was speaking casually about “bad kids;” the observation was made without malice, and I watched him act with obvious respect and compassion towards all of the kids we encountered during our time together.  The insight that different kids need different things from him at different times reflects a high level of moral clarity.

Some professions exist precisely to help clients (or patients or customers) to find Clarity.  Financial analysts evaluate business performance, and accountants evaluate the strength of financial processes.  Engineers, medical professionals, and others all discern conclusions from limited or complex sets of facts and data.  That same sense of discernment applies to many leadership situations.  Does a drop in performance represent a blip, or a trend?  Is this employee having a bad day, or facing a deeper crisis?  How can I be helpful to them, while protecting the interests of our organization?  Finding the best answers to these questions – and countless others like them – both requires and hones our Clarity.

Clarity is a critical factor in responding to any crisis.  It is no accident that crises are sometimes compared to burning buildings.  Firefighters and their commanders responding to actual structure fires must quickly discern the specific features of the fire they are arriving to fight and must make sound decisions about how to fight it.  Are there people inside in need of rescue?  Where are they likely to be, and where are the areas involved or threatened by the fire?  What resources will we have, and when will they arrive?  These leaders must quickly assess the situation, often using disparate data points: their own 360-degree survey of the situation, bystander reports, information from others called into their dispatch center, prior data about the structure and its users, etc.  Seasoned professionals draw on experience and training to make sense of what they are seeing, reading smoke and fire conditions to quickly size up the situation and to establish a strategy.  They know what to look for, and what questions to ask.  They use Clarity and Competence to make decisions that allow them to apply a standard set of approaches, to bring about the best possible outcomes under the circumstances.  It is an apt metaphor for many challenging situations where leadership – and the Virtue of Clarity in particular – are critical success factors.

The Moderate Expression of Clarity

Leaders who exhibit the optimal level of Clarity are both appropriately thoughtful, and appropriately decisive.  They bring their own perspectives, instincts, and insights to bear, helping others to see what they might otherwise have missed, or misconstrued.  They know when and how to engage others effectively in envisioning and planning actions, and in evaluation circumstances.  They know the right questions to ask to improve their own understanding, and to expand clarity within their organizations.

The inadequate expression of Clarity can result in blindness to critical factors, or short-sightedness with respect to the long-range implications of our actions.  We can miss events as they unfold.  No individual has perfect Clarity.  In fact, we human beings have many predictable blind-spots: biases both explicit and implicit, tendencies to see things in particular ways that are distorted or incomplete.  Safe drivers know that their vehicles have blind spots, and so they look over their shoulders and otherwise take care when changing lanes.  Excellent leaders likewise become aware of their cognitive and emotional blind spots and put measures in place to mitigate them, such as sound decision processes, habits that create or sustain mindfulness, and collaboration with others who have differing perspectives.

In the absence of other Virtues, our desire for Clarity can become excessive as well.  It takes Competence to make sense of what we are seeing, and Clarity to understand the limits of our own individual competencies.  It takes Courage to act decisively with limited information, when Clarity leads us to do so.  Clarity alone may lead us to conclude that others need our help; Service leads us to care, and to act accordingly.  If we become too focused on Clarity for its own sake, or too dependent on a level of Clarity that isn’t available in a current situation, we fail to act, and fall short of being our best as leaders.

Features of Clarity: Vision, Discernment, Morality

The features of Clarity are a bit different from the features associated with other virtues.  In the case of the other Virtues, their corresponding features resemble components of virtue.  In this case, Vision, Discernment, and Morality are more like different kinds, or expressions, of Clarity:

• Vision pertains to a leader’s capacity to set direction and to communicate that direction so that others can engage in realizing a shared vision.
• Discernment describes a leader’s ability to make sense of what is before them, using available information to guide decisions and actions.
• Morality refers to a leader’s clear values, their capacity for acting in accordance with those values, and to the capacity for leading others in accordance with shared values.

These features function in the same way that other features do: they provide observable, more specific aspects of Clarity that make it easier to identify and develop that Virtue.

Vision

Vision is evident in a leader’s ability to set direction, establish goals, and craft plans to achieve them.  Clarity might be considered the difference between a daydream and a leadership vision.  The first is a distraction, while the second is critical tool for moving teams and organizations in a shared direction.   Vision also encompasses a leader’s capacity to project the implications of future changes, and to engage a team in addressing those implications.  The visionary leader truly is “three steps ahead” of others, but she is also connected to those she leads, engaging them to follow her forward.

Discernment

Leaders show discernment by making sense of what they are observing – by understanding data, information, and other inputs, and by using them to guide actions.  Discernment is the capacity to separate signal from noise, and to know whether an observed change is likely an emerging trend, or a momentary blip.  Discernment enables us to read a balance sheet to understand the condition of a business, or to read an employee’s face to see whether our words are being taken in the manner intended.  The discerning leader is adept at evaluating new ideas, and then determining the right timing for implementing the ideas that are appropriate.

Morality

Moral clarity enables us to define our values and moral beliefs, and informs our commitment to act in accordance with those values and beliefs.  Moral clarity enables us to decide when to be flexible, and when to stand firm.  It helps us understand differing values, and to make sense of others’ values, even when we do not share them.  That same sort of Clarity helps a leader to understand how her organization’s values intersect with her personal values, and enables her to act in ways that honor both – or to know when those values conflict and what she must do about it.  Effective organizational values help to define an organization’s identity and to support its mission.  The leader with moral clarity can set a tone and establish standards and expectations based on sound organizational values.

We have heard many people share their view that true Clarity – and moral clarity in particular – cannot be developed beyond childhood.  Some see it simply as a gift or endowment.  We disagree.  Some people were fortunate to have developed a rich moral sensibility and the habits of observation that support discernment in childhood.  For some, vision seems to come naturally.  However, we have worked with leaders of all ages to help them develop clarity, including moral clarity at all stages of life.  We have observed and heard from countless others who say that they “grow up” or “came to awareness” at adult ages, sometimes suddenly and sometimes gradually.

The same can be said about many aspects of leadership.  There is a widely held belief that “leaders are born, not made.”  Indisputably, some people seem to possess innate abilities – ranging from intellect to charisma – that may make it easier for them to lead.  By the same token, whatever our innate abilities may be, we will only reach our potential as leaders by developing those gifts and maintaining our capabilities over time.  Clarity contributes to this process as well, helping us to recognize where we need improvement, along with the strengths that must be sustained.

Our experience with thousands of leaders has led us to believe that almost any leader can improve, through increased awareness, thoughtful practice, and reflection.  Practices can be learned, and relevant habits can be developed (or broken).  We believe that the features of Clarity are not exceptions.   If we are not in the habit of looking to the future at all, we can begin to develop vision by simply pausing to ask, “what’s next,” or “where should we be heading?”  If we seem to frequently miss what’s important, or make bad decisions, we can work with more experienced people to appreciate what we are missing, and learn to pay attention to those factors.  If we are cavalier – or even too rigid – with respect to our values, these too are dispositions that we can learn to change over time.  And, while we are addressing any shortcomings, we should also take care to build on our strengths, as well.

Develop Vision:

• Spend time reflecting on where you want to go, where you want your team or organization to go, and why.
• Refine your own sense of purpose. Write a personal credo or mission statement.
• Learn from visionary leaders: study the stories of historical figures, read and follow current visionaries whom you admire. Seek mentorship from someone close to you.

Develop Discernment:

• Learn analytical frameworks that are a part of your work: financial, scientific, technical, psychological, etc. Practice using such frameworks to discern truth.
• Learn to listen carefully and actively. Ask questions aimed at deeper understanding.  Develop a habit of testing your understanding in conversations.
• Reflect on your experience, and use it to develop wisdom and to refine your capacity to make decisions.

Develop Morality:

• Define and reflect on your personal values. What moral values are most important to you?  Why?  Where did these values come from, and how did you learn and come to embrace them?
• Learn more about the shared values – and broader culture – of the communities to which you belong. What traditions and beliefs inform your worldview?  What values, mores, or rules guide your actions?  Embracing – and/or responding critically – to these traditions and values can be a crucial part of our development as leaders with moral clarity.  That ongoing effort can also enable us to engage effectively with people of different cultures or communities.
• Understand your organizational values; if these values have not been defined, or they are not used, lead an effort to create or operationalize them. Focus on the decisions and behaviors that should be guided by sound organizational values.
• Learn and practice ethical decision-making frameworks that push you to look at situations from multiple perspectives. Think about the outcome of potential actions and the people affected, and how your actions reflect (or fail to reflect) your values.  Learn from your experiences and refine your judgement over time.

These techniques, and many others, are discussed in the next section of this Guide, Using the Virtues to Grow as a Leader.

Summary of Clarity

One of the greatest challenges associated with Clarity is recognizing it as a distinctive set of leadership traits.  We are accustomed to looking at competencies or Creativity, even our service orientation, but we may not recognize the unique capacities associated with making sense of things, and with communicating our understanding to others.  We may see take these things for granted, or we may miss critical instances where a lack of Clarity gets us in trouble.  When things go wrong, do we wonder what we missed, or do we lament our bad luck?  Ironically, it may be that appreciating and developing Clarity requires some measure of Clarity.

Sometimes Clarity becomes apparent when it is urgently needed: when a team or organization needs a compelling sense of direction, or a better read on their status, or a shared moral compass.  In these moments, we see success or failure hinging in part on how leaders set priorities, establish plans, and make decisions.  Each of these critical functions are driven by Clarity.

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