The Art of Leadership

Chapter 3. The Situation

Pressure’s on. I can tell from the silence in the staff meeting that something is up. There is no how-was-your-weekend chat-chit, and everyone’s looking around slowly, thinking about the source of the suspense. I write the agenda on the whiteboard, knowing that we’re likely not going to get to any of it because…

…there’s a Situation.

At some point during the past 24 hours, someone discovered the Situation. It arrived unexpectedly during a random conversation. It was delivered by a human who didn’t even know they were describing a Situation. They were just the Situation carrier, but when Mateo heard it, he thought, “Smells like a Situation.”

Mateo immediately took the Situation over to Erica for triage. “Situation, right?” he asked.

“Does this mean that?"” probed Erica.

“Yes,” said Mateo definitively.

“World-class Situation. Red alert. You’re going to need a bigger boat. Alert the troops,” Erica confirmed.

Mateo triangulated the Situation with others to triple-check its Situation-ness, which is why when our staff meeting starts, no one is saying a thing. They all know about the Situation and they know when it’s a verified alert-the-troops Situation, you bring it to me because as a leader Situations are my job.

I sit in my chair. I count to three. I ask, “So, what’s up?”

Mateo glances at the agenda that will never be, shrugs, and says, “Before we start, I think we have a Situation.”

“Describe it,” I instruct.

Mateo walks through his findings and analysis. ...