Many of my clients invest in leadership development because they understand that being a great leader is a skill that needs regular strengthening.

Most leadership development (quite rightly) invests heavily in what leaders say – we work on setting clear visions and goals, introduce coaching models and find the right language to have a difficult conversation. But how much attention do we pay to the messages the leader sends when they are not speaking at all?

The great leaders I have worked with consider the impact they have on others around them. They get that as a leader, someone is always watching.

I care about the messages that leaders send because these are what shapes organisational culture.

Consider the following (unfortunately common!) examples I hear often:

1. The moody/erratic leader.

You know the scene….the boss arrives to work in a proverbial storm cloud; clearly unhappy, heads to their office without any pleasantries and their door is shut behind them.

At best, individuals will chalk this up to a bad day (we all have them!) At worst team members with even the slightest level of insecurity will start to hypothesise ‘is this about me?’ Inevitably, the moody/erratic leader unsettles people – you never know what you’re going to get.

The impact on culture?A moody leader is the antithesis to any organisation trying to foster a culture where employees feel safe and secure. It also implies that it’s acceptable for leaders to throw a fit when things get challenging.

2. The leader who doesn’t follow up.

You and your boss have discussed a piece of work and agreed on next steps. In your next weekly meeting you discuss other stuff that has come up, but your agreed actions are not followed up on. This is a cycle that repeats itself…..deadlines slip and go unnoticed. You start to wonder whether the work is even important at all?

Behaviour like this can allow mediocrity to fester.

The impact on culture?A leader who doesn’t follow up is the worst possible match for an organisation trying to breed a culture of accountability.

3. The leader who cancels regularly.

Your regularly scheduled weekly meetings seem to be an inconvenience for your leader – they miraculously get moved, postponed, shortened or cancelled altogether. When you realise this is now the norm, you conclude they don’t seem to have enough time for you.

The impact on culture? A leader who regularly deprioritises time with their team is the kryptonite to an organisation trying to breed a ‘people first’ culture. How can people really matter if they can be so easily dismissed?

Though these examples are ubiquitous, I wonder if the leaders in each case ever reflect on whether their own behaviour is having an impact. Does the moody leader ever wonder why team members don’t bring them new ideas or engage in debate? Does the leader who doesn’t follow up wonder why nothing ever gets done and/or why deadlines are regularly missed? Does the leader who cancels regularly wonder why individuals have stopped asking for their help?

A wise woman once prompted me to think about the message I was sending to a member of my own team. I was frustrated that my words weren’t getting through but hadn’t stopped to consider that my actions were speaking louder than the carefully crafted script I was reading from, and my message got lost.

What message are you sending?

For those of you born post-1992, you may have never had the pleasure of seeing Angus MacGyver solve a life or death crisis with little more than a paper clip in the classic 80’s TV show, (covertly named) MacGyver.

MacGyver was a secret agent who didn’t carry a gun but his inventiveness meant he would always find a way to get out of a crisis. He is such a cult hero that Urban Dictionary defines ‘MacGyver’ as a verb: “To use ingenuity to fix or remedy a problem using only the tools available at hand” (or my personal favourite definition: “someone that can jump start a truck with a cactus”.)

Though I was a big fan of his mullet and Ray Ban sunglasses in the 80’s, today I marvel at his ability to just get the job done.

In my job, I’m lucky enough to speak to the leaders of some thriving organisations, who hire smart individuals with impressive back stories. But the most common refrain I hear from those leaders is that the smarts and skills are not always enough.

Regardless of industry, seniority or pay cheque, what often separates the talent from the average performers in an organisation is their ability to just find a way to get it done…or to ‘MacGyver’ if you will….

If you are a leader, think about the people who report to you, and the last time you made a call about delegating a critical piece of work. When we’re in crisis mode, we often throw the hot potato (or handsome opportunity!) to the person who won’t let us down…the one that sees obstacles and crashes through them, and treats challenges as road bumps, not brick walls.

We do so because there is a massive difference between the MacGyver’s of the world and everyone else. They:

Don’t stop until the job is done. If the paper clip doesn’t successfully deactivate the bomb, he’ll try the tape! Failure is not an option, so perseverance becomes the norm.

Don’t make excuses. Sure, a gun would’ve been helpful when 4 sworn enemies were approaching, but we never saw MacGyver spit the dummy, or whinge about under-resourcing! If we have to make it work with a crappy piece of cardboard, then we will.

Are resourceful and use whatever they have at their disposal. Often the star performers in an organisation seem to have great networks and helpful friends in other departments who support them in getting the job done. This is not a coincidence – they know how to create an army to solve a problem.

They back their own ability. Personally, I think there was some serious creative license taken when he used some candlesticks and an electrical power cord to revive a colleague, but if he thought he could, he typically did. His power of self-belief probably meant that he accepted challenges that others thought were impossible.

If you wish you had a team of MacGyver’s at your disposal (I mean, who doesn’t?!) then I encourage you to search for them in recruitment. If you can explore whether your candidates have a history of making the unachievable happen, you are half way towards making your life easier when the next work crisis comes around.

“When have you faced a challenge that others initially felt was insurmountable?” is a great place to start.

A few years ago, I was in the office of a senior executive asking for advice on a tough conversation I had been dreading. I was planning to raise a sensitive issue with a peer and was looking forward to it in the same way most people look forward to a root canal!

His advice was simple. He said ‘if it’s not uncomfortable, you are not going hard enough’.

I remember thanking him at the time, and privately rejecting the idea that I had to ‘go hard’ to get my message across. I was a believer that being honest and fair does not necessarily mean tough and ruthless and that I could be direct without reducing the person to a withering mess.

The issue I was addressing was related to the way my peer had run a project meeting, and the off-handed way she had treated the team. I knew she was unaware of the impact of her actions, so my feedback was going to be a shock for her to hear.

So, with all of the confidence of someone settling in for a 2 hour dental procedure, I asked to speak with her. We politely dissected how the meeting had gone, and agreed a plan for how the next meeting was going to run. All of a sudden it hit me. Agreeing a plan that might actually address the problem without really having to address why it was an issue in the first place meant I could hover in the safe territory of generalities and abort the more difficult mission.

The truth here is difficult to admit. I’d like to say that the reason I wanted to avoid the tricky bit of the conversation was to protect my peer’s feelings. The honest truth though, is that was possibly 50% of the reason at best. The other half of the reason was that I didn’t want to feel uncomfortable.

I have since worked with many Managers who recognise this scenario all too well. We know intuitively what we need to say, but sometimes the difficulty in actually saying it means we can soften the blow and pull our punches, just at the time that it’s most dangerous to do so.

And so the ‘going hard enough’ advice took on a different meaning for me. It wasn’t the way I needed to deliver the message that had to be hard, it was the message itself.

Here are 3 tips that I share with Managers, to turn this into action;

1. Plan your message prior to starting the conversation. This only needs to capture what the 2 or 3 key messages are that you need to deliver. If you are clear on the core messages you need to send, you can check yourself before winding up to ensure you have actually said them. Hold yourself accountable to saying them, even if you have danced around them during the conversation.

2. Ask yourself this: If the person was to leave this meeting right now, and someone asked them to replay what was said, what message would they have received? Would it be the same as the one you had intended to give? If there is any doubt in your mind, don’t end the conversation until you’ve said ‘let me be clear…..’ and ensure you’ve covered your 2 or 3 key messages. This will eliminate any doubt that you have softened the message, and that they have heard it.

3. Lead with the most difficult bit first. Those that know they are prone to start a conversation softly, and work their way up to dealing with the issue, run the risk that they either run out of time, or abort when things get tough. Remove this risk by ripping that proverbial band aid right off at the start. Lead with, “I need to talk to you about…..’ and jump right in. You then have the rest of the meeting to explore how they feel about it and what can be done, which is likely to yield far better results. And the added bonus is that the feeling of uncomfortableness tends to dissipate once the hardest part is over.

Delivering hard messages is tough but we should acknowledge that as Leaders it’s always going to be part of the gig. Perhaps we need to get comfortable with the knowledge that we are actually uncomfortable because we are doing the right thing.