Over the past decade, I have found personal passion and fulfillment in designing and delivering customized leadership development programs for organizations. It’s exciting to experience the “aha” moment with a leader when they find a creative path forward past a seemingly intractable problem. Or to see a leader’s confidence emerge, allowing them to take on larger initiatives than they ever thought possible. Or to see leaders of different functions move from disagreement to high levels of collaboration. Perhaps the most rewarding, and humbling, is how much I learn from the talented individuals and groups I work with.

Recently, it seems like I’ve been hearing a recurring story; frustrated leaders who are exasperated with the lack of clarity regarding their roles within the organization. They want clear boundaries, measurable performance metrics and to understand how their deliverables impact the overall mission. This lack of role clarity not only causes frustration and diminished performance, but is also a recipe for burnout and attrition of talented people. In today’s tight labor market, nobody wants to risk this.

Over the past few years, the acronym V.U.C.A. (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) has been used to describe the challenging environment that we have been operating in. With the onset of COVID-19, these dynamics have been exacerbated in an unprecedented fashion.