Why your team isn’t underperforming — your instructions are
He’d just come back from Bali. Two weeks with no kids, no dogs, no work. For the first time in months, he wasn’t driving home with a hundred things spinning in his head.
Then we got to work, and within ten minutes he’d found the line he said he’d stick on his wall:
Vague directives create vague results.
Sound Familiar?
- You ask for something “as soon as you can”, and it arrives three days later than you needed it.
- You give your team “a rough guide” to a deadline, then quietly chase it yourself.
- You end up stepping in to fix it because it’s faster than explaining it again.
- You drive home exhausted, and most of what you carried was other people’s work.
That isn’t a talent problem. It’s a structure problem.
The cost of “around about two”
Take three versions of the same request:
- “Get this done as soon as you can.” To one person that means five minutes. To another it means next week.
- “We’ll need that around about two.” Better, but there’s still room to drift.
- “Is it possible, with your schedule, to have this done by 2pm?” Done. They’ve checked it against their day. They’ve said yes. Everyone knows where they stand.
Here’s the litmus test: if ten people heard your directive, would all ten explain it back the same way? If not, you haven’t given a directive. You’ve given a riddle.
And riddles cost you. Every unclear instruction makes your people use their own brainpower to work out what you meant before they can do the job. Multiply that across a team of 75 and you can see where the productivity goes.
You can’t hold people to account for something you never defined
Leaders tell me they want more accountability. But accountability sits on top of clarity. If the deadline was “around about”, there’s nothing to hold anyone to, and the job ends up back with you.
That’s how capable leaders slide into the Operator pattern, carrying the load alone and stepping in under pressure because explaining it properly feels slower than doing it themselves. In the short term it works. In the long term it’s a direct road to burnout.
Diplomacy under pressure becomes evasion
The Harrison data showed something that comes up again and again in senior leaders. This leader is naturally more diplomatic than frank. When things are calm, he has access to both. Under pressure, he softens the message until the urgency disappears.
He hesitated to ask his drivers for overtime because he assumed they wouldn’t want it. When he finally asked, they had already offered to work Saturdays.
Being diplomatic isn’t the problem. Being so diplomatic that nobody understands what you need is the problem. You can be clear and kind at the same time. It isn’t a choice between them.
Bridge the Gap: the clear directive
Use the GPS structure in every directive and every difficult conversation:
- Destination. Start with the end result. What does done look like, and by when?
- Current Location. Say where things actually stand, including the constraints.
- Bridge the Gap. Agree on the specific next step, who owns it, and the deadline.
Then close it off: “Text me the outcome by Tuesday, close of business.” Not “let me know how it goes”, but Tuesday, close of business.
The quality of your leadership is the quality of your instructions
The same rule applies to AI tools. Ask a vague question and you get a vague answer. Your team works the same way.
The clearer you are, the more your people step up, and the less you have to step in. That’s how you lead a team without carrying it.
If you’re the leader who fixes everything at 5pm, it isn’t a capability gap. It’s a structural one, and it can be fixed. Take the leadership archetype diagnostic to find your pattern.
