For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.

Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader.

Looking ahead and making decisions. Those are among the most important things that good leaders do. But, both are risky. Both require that you lay your experience, perspective, and judgment on the line. And your experience, perspective, and judgment might be wrong. That’s scary. That’s why Leadership Courage is an essential element of Leading with Data.

The past and present are safe
Too often leaders focus on using data to report current events rather than resolve future issues. It’s easy to talk about the present. There is very little personal risk. But past and present data don’t generally provide insight. Sure, they provide information. But information isn’t enough to create change. Change requires interpretation and speculation. Gökce Sargut and Rita Gunther McGrath make this point in their September, 2011 Harvard Business Review article, “Learning to Live with Complexity” when talking about the use of “lagging” (backward facing) data and “leading” (forward looking) data:

If the bulk of your information is in the lagging bucket, that’s a warning sign. Basing decisions mainly on lagging indicators is essentially betting that the future will be like the past. At least some of your information should be in the leading bucket. This information will be fuzzy and subjective by definition: The future hasn’t happened yet. But without it, you’re apt to be blindsided by change.

It’s ok to speculate
For some reason, speculation has gotten a bad rap. That’s probably because the term has become interchangeable with “guessing”. Speculation is not guessing. It’s not random or irresponsible. It is what separates good leaders from the rest of us.

I recently worked with a leader who wouldn’t make any statements that he couldn’t conclusively prove with data. This limited him to only talking about things that already happened.  For example, this leader had a rock-solid case that the company’s sales force was ineffective and was inconsistent in their application of the sales processes (which most people probably already knew). His leadership didn’t need more data on the problem. They needed a solution. And, no matter how much data you have, recommendations are always speculative. Because this leader refused to speculate, his meetings and conversations never moved the organization forward. He had a well-documented root-cause analysis, but it didn’t provide a solution. Ironically, his assumption that sales would improve if they addressed the process inconsistency was speculation. He only had data that the problem existed. He had no proof that fixing it would change anything. Staying in the present doesn’t prevent speculation. It only delays it. At some point, you need a solution. All solutions and future actions, even if grounded in data, are speculative. Being scared to speculate means being unable to move forward.

Good leaders move beyond discussion of current events. They interpret those events. They combine them with their experience and project what might happen (or what should happen) in the future.

If you aren’t talking about the future, your organization will repeat its past.

Making decisions
The second critical aspect of leadership courage is making decisions. There are two decisions that leaders should be making on a regular basis:

1. Assessments of the current situation
2. Required actions

Surprisingly, many leaders shy away from both. How often do you hear leaders present their current results by simply stating whether they are hitting or missing their targets? That’s safe. Everyone is looking at the same data. There isn’t much risk in saying aloud what everyone else is reading.

Instead of simply stating that the department missed some of its targets (which everyone could see on their own) an individual with leadership courage might say:

Even though we saw a slight dip in performance, we are still in good shape and will end the year strong.

or

Our performance is down but it is primarily due to our leadership team in the Southern region. We are going to bring in some new leaders to turn things around. At this point, we don’t believe that we need to make changes outside of that region.

While these statements appear simple, they provide two things that a rehash of the data doesn’t: 1) an opinion of the implications of the data and 2) a proposed action.

Assessments and actions drive business forward. But they require courage. As soon as you move away from the data and start interpreting it, you might be wrong. You might disagree with your boss. Or, you might ruffle some feathers. Leaders who worry about such things will often just opt to pass along the facts. Are you willing to take a stand? Do you talk in terms of assessment and action or data and facts? If you are sticking to the facts, you may be playing it safe. You also may be stalling progress.

Of course, just with speculation, assessment and actions must be based on data and not desire or hopes. Leadership Courage isn’t about manipulating or ignoring data to make a point. Leadership Courage is about being confident in the conclusions you’ve drawn and the process you used to draw those conclusions. In fact, individuals with the most leadership courage put all of the data on the table, even those that contradict their opinion.

Leading with data requires the courage to take a stand, develop a point of view, and recommend actions. None of those is certain and all are risky. Leaders who step up to the challenge and take the risks will be the ones who help drive their business forward.

——————-
Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.