The True Function of Leadership

“Why do we need leaders at all?” is a better question than you might think. We’re so used to hierarchical structures and others telling us what to do from infancy on, that the idea that leadership has a function — that it’s more than “just the way things are” may escape us.

In We the People, Sharon Villines and John Buck write: “Unpredictable events will always occur as we pursue our aims. The purpose of leadership is to steer us through or around them.”

Notice that they said “leadership,” not “leaders.” They define leadership as a cybernetic process that exists in relation to the gap between expectation and occurrence.

The other gap — the one that most of us think of as the purview of leadership —the one between current and desired reality, isn’t the point. As Villines and Buck point out, “Without disturbances, we could organize our work processes just once and function robotically without leadership. Everyone would show up for work on time and never take more than the allotted time for lunch.”

Leadership exists because of uncertainty about the future.

What does this mean for those of you who aspire to leadership? What are the requirements of effective leadership in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world?

Four things that have nothing to do with motivation or control come to mind:

1. You need a 35,000 foot perspective. While team and individual contributors benefit the whole by focusing on their parts, the leadership point of view must be informed by more external inputs and a greater range of interests.
2. You need a rapid and valid feedback from all parts of the system as you move forward. You need to know what’s happening within and without our organizations in as close to real time as possible. This means that channels of communication must be highly efficient in both directions, and there has to be a baseline of safety and trust among all nodes.
3. You need a nervous system that can handle making decisions with limited knowledge. That doesn’t need to wait for perfect information (which, if it exists, always shows up too late). That doesn’t make unilateral gut-based decisions in the absence of whatever data exist inside and outside your organization.
4. You need to cultivate the ability to perceive reality as it happens, without routing it through the lens of your past conditioning (ie “fighting the last war”). To be able to see patterns where they exist, and novelty where old paradigms are irrelevant.

So here’s a quick diagnostic to assess how your leadership operating system is likely to perform under pressure. No one’s going to see your answers but you, so please pick the response closest to what your honest default would be — not necessarily you at your best.

1. You’re in the middle of executing a plan that’s working. Then you come across an article, a conversation, or a data point that suggests the broader landscape your organization operates in may be shifting in ways your current strategy doesn’t account for.

1. A) I register it, but I stay focused on execution. We set this plan for a reason and I don’t want to chase every shiny object.
2. B) I forward it to my team and ask someone to “keep an eye on it” — though I know that usually means it disappears.
3. C) I have a regular practice of scanning for exactly these kinds of signals — economic, technological, cultural, regulatory — and a framework for deciding which ones warrant a strategic conversation now versus later.
4. D) I find these moments unsettling. If I’m honest, I tend to avoid information that might complicate a plan that’s already in motion.

2. A major initiative you launched three months ago is getting quietly deprioritized by two department heads. You find out from a junior employee at a company offsite.

1. A) I’m frustrated but not surprised — I know information gets filtered before it reaches me. I just don’t know how to fix that.
2. B) I set up a meeting with the department heads to get the real story and course-correct.
3. C) I’m genuinely caught off guard. I thought the weekly updates I was getting meant things were on track.
4. D) This wouldn’t typically happen because I’ve built channels — skip-levels, anonymous inputs, informal check-ins — specifically designed to surface this kind of signal early.

3. You need to make a significant hiring decision for a role that will shape your company’s direction, but the two strongest candidates each represent a very different bet on the future. The data supports both cases.

1. A) I delay the decision until there’s more clarity. The wrong hire here would be costly.
2. B) I go with my gut. I’ve built this company, and my instincts about people and direction have gotten me this far.
3. C) I synthesize the available data, name what I don’t know, consult 2-3 people whose judgment I trust, and make the call within a defined timeframe — knowing it’s a bet, not a certainty.
4. D) I hire the one who most reminds me of what’s worked before. Culture fit matters.

4. Your industry’s conventional wisdom says the next 18 months will look like the last 18 months, but you’re noticing a few weak signals that something fundamental might be shifting.

1. A) I note the signals but stick with our plan. We’ve been successful with this model and I don’t want to overreact to noise.
2. B) I find myself torn — part of me sees something new, but I keep defaulting to frameworks that have worked in the past. I’m not sure I trust what I’m seeing.
3. C) I’ve learned to distinguish between genuine pattern recognition and anxiety masquerading as insight. I’d test the signal with small experiments before making any big moves.
4. D) I raise it with my leadership team, but when they push back with “that’s not how our industry works,” I defer to the consensus.

If you’d like to debrief your responses and what they say about your VUCA leadership style, DM me on LinkedIn or email me at howie@askhowie.com and we’ll find a time to chat.