By Chally Kacelnik
Leadership is often seen as a natural inheritance for people who have honed their technical skill. It’s seen as less a skillset itself than as common sense, or a natural attribute some people have (and some people don’t). This isn’t the case. In practice, this perspective is one of the reasons leaders struggle.
What seems obvious to one person isn’t necessarily obvious to another, particularly under pressure. Leaders are constantly making judgement calls with incomplete information, competing priorities, and real consequences. Relying on instinct and individual experience alone might work some of the time, but it isn’t a reliable foundation for consistent leadership. Leadership, even for “natural leaders,” is largely learned, and it is its own distinct skillset. That’s why technical experts launched into leadership roles with no leadership training often fall over.
Perhaps you’ve heard the adage “common sense is not that common”. It’s generally meant in a sneering sense, to indicate that most people are a bit stupid. To me, it has another meaning: people’s ideas of what is broadly shared knowledge are themselves not broadly shared. “Common sense” is shaped by experience, assumptions, and personal preference. That means it varies widely. Without shared frameworks, leaders across the same organisation can make very different decisions in similar situations, creating confusion and inconsistency for their teams.
That’s why specific development work is needed to create a common language and toolkit among leaders. Unfortunately, this is also where many leadership development efforts fall short. They reinforce broad ideas (be authentic, communicate clearly, empower others) without giving leaders practical ways to address real problems. When things get difficult, leaders revert to habit. This is not because they’re unwilling to change, but rather because there’s nothing solid with which to replace instinct.
Effective leadership requires disciplined thinking. You need the right frameworks and tools in place. These don’t replace your native judgement, but rather support it. They help leaders to slow down when it matters, test assumptions, and make decisions that are defensible and repeatable. Over and over, leaders tell us our planning tools have created a turnaround in financial results, or our levels of work framework has reshaped the kind of work they do day to day.
Our leadership programs focus on building leaders’ capacity to think about their work, not just act within it. When leaders have shared and consistent ways of making sense of problems, leadership becomes less about personality and more about practice. The outcome is that results become far more consistent.
At LKS Quaero, we help our clients with role clarity. For more information, visit us at lksquaero.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook.
