to be a baller, be a shot caller
One of the greatest gifts a leader can give her people is clarity. Clarity takes guts. You need high grade guts to deliver mission clarity: pick a thing to do and a way to do it that can be explained simply (mission/strategy). You need low grade guts to deliver situational clarity: taking the current subtext and making it text, one conversation, one meeting, one decision at a time.
One way the leader can best model this is “calling her shot”. Instead of quietly pulling moves with the hope that subtlety or subtext will get the mindset and behavior you want, tell your people the honest reason why you’re doing a thing you’re doing and the impact you hope it has.
Don’t rely on reverse psychology, or people “getting the hint,” or the loose belief that “we’re all good people here,” as proxies for clarity. When you do that, you’re putting uncertain, unnecessary emotional labor on your people. They should use that effort on something harder and higher stakes for your mission. Don’t make folks read between the lines.
A few regular places to “call your shot”:
Instead of withholding praise, deliver it and explain why.
“This thing that Jerome did is great! Nice job Jerome! I’m pointing it out because I want Jerome to feel good and because I want the rest of you to do this too - when you do, we hit our goal.”
Instead of continuing team rituals because “it’s what we always do,” return to and restate the purpose of them.
Advanced players of this game prompt others on the team to do this. “Hey Nadira - remind us why we do this thing? What’s the point of it again?”
Every time you think, “I hope the team / this person doesn’t interpret x the wrong way.”
Sure, if you call your shot, anxious or insecure folks may still infer an ulterior motive. But everyone else now has an easier story to believe and build on - you’ve given them the explanation for what’s happening. Over reps and risks run, if calling your shot is your habit, even your anxious people will see that you’re good for your word.
Calling your shot makes transparency and honesty visible signatures of your culture. I think those things are nice in their own right. They’re also useful - they save time, cash, and willpower for work from your people that most directly gets you closer to achieving your mission.
Calling your shot also gives your team a chance to understand your thinking and to critique that thinking. Instead of exercising power, alone, you can build a way of doing things, together.
The counterargument to calling your shot is often about authenticity. Won’t people take your praise less seriously if they know it’s a tool you’re wielding to gin up performance and not just the unfiltered manifestation of your positive feelings?
Good news! They won’t take it less seriously. Praise from a leader feels good to the recipient. But this is only one thing it does. It’s also the cheapest, most scalable evidence of what matters to the leader and “they way things work around here.” The positive feelings are nice and useful - the clarity is crucial. That clarity makes a difference whether folks feel warm and fuzzy about it or not.
-Eric