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I think you are missing some possibilities: > 1. Leadership is unable to express their goals and values in a way that clearly communicate what they want from e

by zepto 5y ago

I think you are missing some possibilities: > 1. Leadership is unable to express their goals and values in a way that clearly communicate what they want from employees. This appears to be what you're getting at with the example of LoC. An alternative you haven’t considered is that leadership is excellent at communicating what they want, but it’s not reducible to a simple set of incentive foals. 2. Leadership is unable to maintain consistent goals and values Another alternative that you are not considering is that the world is dynamic and excellent leadership involves adapting goals as the world changes, not maintaining consistency for the sake of easy comparison with other organizations. 3. Leadership doesn't want to reward people based on their stated goals and values This is a non-sequitur if we consider 1 & 2. None of this implies duplicity or secrets. Perhaps people can judge leaders based on results and culture without needing to see it reduced to a rule set.

joshuamorton 5y ago
> An alternative you haven’t considered is that leadership is excellent at communicating what they want, but it’s not reducible to a simple set of incentive foals. Can you give an example? > Another alternative that you are not considering is that the world is dynamic and excellent leadership involves adapting goals as the world changes, not maintaining consistency for the sake of easy comparison with other organizations. I did consider this. I don't think maintaining consistency for the sake of easy comparison is a good reason to maintain consistency, but consistency in values is good because it changing values is damaging to an organization. It requires a cultural shift that usually causes deep pain and often requires firing members of leadership (I suggest reading https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926 for a good post that influences my thoughts here and matches my experience). If leadership is unable to maintain consistent values, that is a failure of leadership in my eyes. They are unreliable. Values can change, but they should do so slowly and rarely (and with good, and preferably transparent, reason). If a leader is unable to maintain cohesive goals over a reasonable timescale, that's also an indictment of their abilities to plan within and understand the space they are working in. Or to put another way, your organization will not develop a cohesive identity and culture without clear goals and values. Now oftentimes, you do have some clear values even if you don't state them, but then the question for leadership becomes "are those really the values you want"? And if you don't know them well enough to be able to state them, I'd suggest that the answer is probably not. > Perhaps people can judge leaders based on results and culture I'll reiterate: you cannot judge a leader based on culture if they don't declare what that culture is, or if their values and goals change too often. Values and goals set culture, and if values and goals change, culture changes. If all you know about a leader is that their values and goals change often, you can't judge them and their organization by how it looks today, because you can have high confidence that it will look fundamentally different soon. That's a sign of dysfunction. So I do judge them based on that: I judge them to be bad leaders. You appear to disagree, but I'm not sure how you are judging them if you can't even be sure of what their values will be tomorrow.
- zepto 5y ago
  Leaders maintaining values is a matter of whether they have integrity, not of whether they can write down a set of rules for determining employee pay grades. I don’t really know why you trust organizations that can write a statement of values down not to change. Frequently these statements are written by consultants anyway, and organizations that do have good written principles that they live up to, do so because they have leaders of integrity, not the other way around. I accept that you can’t see any other way to judge leaders than by examining their written statements.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    > I don’t really know why you trust organizations that can write a statement of values down not to change. I don't! But I do trust that it will be moderately more difficult (and far more transparent) for them to do so than an organization which chooses not to. If you have your values declared, people can hold you (or the org) accountable to them. If you then change them, you have to announce it, or people will continue to hold you accountable to the old one. > and organizations that do have good written principles that they live up to, do so because they have leaders of integrity, not the other way around. I agree! But good leaders also make it easy for their reports to hold them accountable, and it's far more difficult to hold someone accountable to a set of values if those values are unstated. That's why the values need to be stated. Like, please explain to me how you live up to the organizations principles if no one knows what they are! (and if everyone agrees on what they are, why can't you write them down?) And I should clarify if it wasn't already clear, I'm not talking about values like "integrity" or "respect the user", but things like "bias toward action" and "move fast and break things", that give you insight into how decisions should be made in the org. > I accept that you can’t see any other way to judge leaders than by examining their written statements. I judge leaders by examining how their stated values correspond with their actions. Their stated values give me a framework for judging them.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > I'm not talking about values like "integrity" or "respect the user", but things like "bias toward action" and "move fast and break things", that give you insight into how decisions should be made in the org. How do are these qualitatively different kinds of value? >> I accept that you can’t see any other way to judge leaders than by examining their written statements. > I judge leaders by examining how their stated values correspond with their actions. Their stated values give me a framework for judging them. An alternative is to simply judge their actions, how they treat people, and the results their organization produces by your own values.

by zepto 5y ago

joshuamorton 5y ago

> An alternative you haven’t considered is that leadership is excellent at communicating what they want, but it’s not reducible to a simple set of incentive foals. Can you give an example? > Another alternative that you are not considering is that the world is dynamic and excellent leadership involves adapting goals as the world changes, not maintaining consistency for the sake of easy comparison with other organizations. I did consider this. I don't think maintaining consistency for the sake of easy comparison is a good reason to maintain consistency, but consistency in values is good because it changing values is damaging to an organization. It requires a cultural shift that usually causes deep pain and often requires firing members of leadership (I suggest reading https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926 for a good post that influences my thoughts here and matches my experience). If leadership is unable to maintain consistent values, that is a failure of leadership in my eyes. They are unreliable. Values can change, but they should do so slowly and rarely (and with good, and preferably transparent, reason). If a leader is unable to maintain cohesive goals over a reasonable timescale, that's also an indictment of their abilities to plan within and understand the space they are working in. Or to put another way, your organization will not develop a cohesive identity and culture without clear goals and values. Now oftentimes, you do have some clear values even if you don't state them, but then the question for leadership becomes "are those really the values you want"? And if you don't know them well enough to be able to state them, I'd suggest that the answer is probably not. > Perhaps people can judge leaders based on results and culture I'll reiterate: you cannot judge a leader based on culture if they don't declare what that culture is, or if their values and goals change too often. Values and goals set culture, and if values and goals change, culture changes. If all you know about a leader is that their values and goals change often, you can't judge them and their organization by how it looks today, because you can have high confidence that it will look fundamentally different soon. That's a sign of dysfunction. So I do judge them based on that: I judge them to be bad leaders. You appear to disagree, but I'm not sure how you are judging them if you can't even be sure of what their values will be tomorrow.

zepto 5y ago
Leaders maintaining values is a matter of whether they have integrity, not of whether they can write down a set of rules for determining employee pay grades. I don’t really know why you trust organizations that can write a statement of values down not to change. Frequently these statements are written by consultants anyway, and organizations that do have good written principles that they live up to, do so because they have leaders of integrity, not the other way around. I accept that you can’t see any other way to judge leaders than by examining their written statements.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  > I don’t really know why you trust organizations that can write a statement of values down not to change. I don't! But I do trust that it will be moderately more difficult (and far more transparent) for them to do so than an organization which chooses not to. If you have your values declared, people can hold you (or the org) accountable to them. If you then change them, you have to announce it, or people will continue to hold you accountable to the old one. > and organizations that do have good written principles that they live up to, do so because they have leaders of integrity, not the other way around. I agree! But good leaders also make it easy for their reports to hold them accountable, and it's far more difficult to hold someone accountable to a set of values if those values are unstated. That's why the values need to be stated. Like, please explain to me how you live up to the organizations principles if no one knows what they are! (and if everyone agrees on what they are, why can't you write them down?) And I should clarify if it wasn't already clear, I'm not talking about values like "integrity" or "respect the user", but things like "bias toward action" and "move fast and break things", that give you insight into how decisions should be made in the org. > I accept that you can’t see any other way to judge leaders than by examining their written statements. I judge leaders by examining how their stated values correspond with their actions. Their stated values give me a framework for judging them.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > I'm not talking about values like "integrity" or "respect the user", but things like "bias toward action" and "move fast and break things", that give you insight into how decisions should be made in the org. How do are these qualitatively different kinds of value? >> I accept that you can’t see any other way to judge leaders than by examining their written statements. > I judge leaders by examining how their stated values correspond with their actions. Their stated values give me a framework for judging them. An alternative is to simply judge their actions, how they treat people, and the results their organization produces by your own values.