Boundaries Blog — Boundaries for Leaders

Business management expert Ken Blanchard says that feedback is the "breakfast of champions." Indeed, learning how we are doing and how to do better are keys to great performance. In fact, the best performance situations are when we are getting the most immediate feedback, which is from the task itself, as flow researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found.

The problem tends to occur at the moment when we actually get the feedback, either from other people or from the outcomes themselves. That is when our leadership character shows itself. While Blanchard gets it exactly right about the kind of breakfast we need, truth is that not everyone has the same appetite for breakfast....

One of the most important boundaries that people have to establish is against the tendency to put off changes that they know need to be made. If you think about it, much "waiting" and putting off changes has nothing to do with "getting more information," or "waiting until we get finished with a, b, or c." Obviously, it's essential to gather data and do analysis, but many people allow too much lag time between knowing and doing.

I (Dr. Cloud) remember once when I had a decision to make regarding a significant investment. I had been reluctant to green light the deal because it was in an area that I was less familiar with than I wanted to be. The truth, however, was that my advisers were experts in this arena, and I really did trust their opinions. Still, I was putting it off. Finally one of them, the lead investor, called me....

Remember the old saying "Come on, this is not brain surgery"? It was meant to convey the simplicity of an answer or a concept, and often meant to prod people to get off their butts and do what is obvious. That is how it is with a leader's boundaries. It is profoundly simple. You do not have to be a brain surgeon to establish the boundaries that are usually made by a great leader.

But at the same time, underneath it all, it really is brain surgery, because the reason that a leader's boundaries work is that they actually make it possible for people's brains to function as they were designed....

There are several dimensions to how successful leaders think that are important to know, but I want to focus on five especially. If you want to develop your thinking, the following practices will serve you well.

1. Know Your Cognitive Style

Your cognitive style refers to the way you process information from your environment. It has to do with how you read journal articles, how you listen to what others tell you, and how you draw conclusions based on how you observe the workplace. One key aspect of cognitive style is whether your thinking tends to be linear or nonlinear.

Linear thinkers are …