No Bullsh*t Leadership

Picture yourself walking into a workplace where decisions happen swiftly, where teams feel empowered to act, and where everyone from the newest hire to the senior manager understands exactly what needs to be done and why. This isn't a fantasy scenario—it's what happens when real leadership takes hold. Yet too often, we find ourselves trapped in endless meetings, drowning in mission statements, and waiting for someone else to make the tough calls.

The truth is, leadership isn't reserved for corner offices or famous CEOs. It's happening right now in hospital wards, school departments, startup teams, and community organizations. Every day, millions of people are quietly leading others toward better outcomes, solving problems, and creating positive change. The question isn't whether you have what it takes to lead—it's whether you're ready to cut through the noise and focus on what actually works.

Leadership doesn't require complicated theories or fancy frameworks. At its core, it's simply about getting a group of people from one place to another. Think of it as navigating from point A to point B, where A represents where you are today, and B represents where you want to be in the future.

The beauty of this definition lies in its clarity. You start by honestly assessing your current position—whether that's a struggling team, declining performance, or simply the desire to reach the next level. This isn't about sugar-coating reality or finding elaborate explanations. More often than not, the challenges facing your team are glaringly obvious to everyone involved.

Consider the story of Eddie Jones, who took over England's rugby team after their humiliating first-round exit from their home World Cup in 2015. Rather than crafting an elaborate mission statement, Jones simply declared: "We want to win the next World Cup in Japan in 2019." It was clear, ambitious, and impossible to misunderstand. His players knew exactly what they were working toward.

The key to defining your destination is resisting the temptation to overcomplicate things. Business consultants love to talk about "visions" and "missions," but these often become intellectual exercises that never translate into action. Instead, ask yourself the simple question: where do we want to get to? Your answer might be "to be the best in our field" or "to improve customer satisfaction by 20 percent" or "to win promotion to the next league." The specifics matter less than the clarity.

Leadership becomes infinitely more manageable when you strip away the jargon and focus on this fundamental truth: you're simply guiding people from where they are to where they need to be. Everything else is just noise that gets in the way of real progress.

Winston Churchill loved one phrase so much he had it made into stickers to save time writing it repeatedly: "Action this day." This simple directive captures the essence of effective leadership—the relentless focus on turning ideas into reality. While others get bogged down in planning and theorizing, true leaders understand that execution is everything.

The harsh reality is that most leadership failures aren't due to bad strategy or lack of vision. They happen because leaders spend too much time preparing and not enough time doing. Ideas are abundant and cheap—every organization is full of smart people with brilliant suggestions. What separates successful teams from mediocre ones is their ability to select the right ideas and execute them brilliantly.

Lou Gerstner demonstrated this principle when he took over IBM in 1993. The company was drowning in strategies and consultants, yet performance continued to decline. Gerstner famously declared that the last thing IBM needed was another strategy—what they needed was the courage to choose one approach and implement it relentlessly. He stopped the endless planning meetings and started making decisions, ultimately transforming Big Blue into a technology powerhouse.

The path forward requires embracing Colin Powell's 40/70 rule: don't act if you have less than 40 percent certainty, but don't wait until you're more than 70 percent certain, because by then you've waited too long. This means accepting that some decisions will be wrong, but recognizing that making too few decisions is far worse than making imperfect ones.

Start by reframing your relationship with failure. Instead of fearing wrong decisions, fear the paralysis that comes from avoiding decisions altogether. Create checklists for routine tasks to free up mental energy for the big calls. Run meetings that actually result in decisions, not just discussions. Most importantly, remember that your team would rather follow someone who makes the occasional mistake than someone who never makes any decision at all.

Peter Drucker's famous observation about culture eating strategy for breakfast isn't just a clever saying—it's a fundamental truth about how organizations actually work. You can have the most brilliant strategy in the world, but if your culture doesn't support it, you'll fail. Culture is the invisible force that determines whether your team rises to extraordinary heights or struggles to meet basic expectations.

Most organizations completely misunderstand what culture actually is. They think it's about mission statements on walls or company values listed on websites. In reality, culture is simply how your team behaves when you're not in the room—which is most of the time. It's the unwritten rules that govern how people interact, make decisions, and respond to challenges.

Leicester City Football Club provided one of the most remarkable examples of culture triumphing over resources. In 2016, under manager Claudio Ranieri, this unfashionable team with modest talent defeated odds of 5,000 to 1 to win the English Premier League. They didn't have the best players or the biggest budget, but Ranieri created a culture where every player understood their role and felt empowered to make decisions on the field. He famously said, "I will not speak of tactics"—his strategy was his culture.

The secret to building an effective culture lies in understanding that it must serve a purpose: enabling your team to outperform the competition. This means moving away from traditional top-down, command-and-control structures toward something more dynamic. Your best people need to feel trusted to use their judgment, not constantly seek approval for every decision.

Start by asking yourself one crucial question about your team members: "What do you recommend?" This simple phrase transforms people from problem-bringers into solution-providers. Next, examine your physical environment—does your seating plan reinforce hierarchy or collaboration? Finally, ensure that your behavior as a leader consistently models the culture you want to see. Remember, culture isn't what you say in meetings—it's what you do when the pressure is on.

Great teams aren't built by accident—they're carefully constructed by leaders who understand that talent and culture are the only two factors that truly differentiate organizations. At the end of the day, most businesses are just buildings full of people. What makes one building outperform another comes down to having the right people working within the right culture.

The key insight is recognizing that you're not just in whatever business you think you're in—you're in the talent acquisition and retention business. Every leader, whether running a Fortune 500 company or coaching a youth soccer team, must constantly ask themselves: "How good am I for the careers of the people who work for me?" If you're not making people better, they'll eventually find someone who will.

Consider the approach taken by Saracens rugby club, one of Europe's most successful teams. They recognized that professional rugby careers are short and brutal, so they gave players every Wednesday off to pursue business interests, education, or other careers. This wasn't just generous—it was strategic. Players who knew the club cared about their future beyond rugby were willing to give everything they had while they were there.

The most successful teams balance individual ambition with collective goals. Your people need to see that achieving the team's objectives directly serves their personal interests as well. This isn't about making everyone happy—it's about creating alignment between what's good for the team and what's good for each person on it.

Building your team starts with understanding that diverse teams consistently outperform homogeneous ones. You need both reliable steady performers and creative mavericks, both analytical thinkers and intuitive decision-makers. Your job isn't to manage this diversity away, but to create a culture where different types of people can thrive together. Most importantly, don't be afraid to make tough decisions about people who deliver results but undermine your culture—they often hold back everyone else's performance.

Leading change is the ultimate test of leadership skill, like climbing Mount Everest while convincing others the journey is worthwhile. Whether you're turning around a failing business or taking a good team to greatness, the principles remain consistent, though the execution becomes infinitely more challenging.

The first step in any transformation is brutal honesty about where you stand today. Often, this means acknowledging what everyone already knows but nobody wants to say out loud. When you walk into a struggling organization, you can usually sense its problems within minutes—the reception area tells the story, the body language of employees reveals their mindset, and the little things that nobody bothers to fix anymore show how much people care.

Springfield Primary School in East London demonstrates how dramatic change is possible with the right approach. When a new leadership team arrived at this failing school, they didn't waste time on elaborate turnaround plans. Instead, they identified their "first five"—a core team of committed educators who shared their vision of excellence. Together, they focused on one clear objective: creating a great school. Everything they did served that single purpose.

The secret to successful change lies in understanding that it doesn't happen in linear stages. Instead, think of change as breaking free from a post that's been driven deep into the ground. Initially, direction matters less than movement—you need to prove that change is possible by making things feel different immediately. Only after you've built belief in the possibility of change can you focus on directional progress toward your ultimate goal.

Your transformation strategy should focus on finding your "schwerpunkt"—the single point where concentrated effort will have the maximum impact. This might be improving customer service, winning new business, or developing a particular skill across your team. Once identified, pursue it relentlessly while temporarily setting aside other important but less critical issues. Remember, change is a marathon run in reverse—start fast to build momentum, then prepare yourself for the long journey ahead.

The world doesn't need more management theories or elaborate leadership frameworks. What it desperately needs is more people willing to step up, cut through the noise, and focus on what actually works. Leadership isn't about personality types, expensive education, or corner offices—it's about getting things done and helping others achieve more than they thought possible.

As this book reminds us, "The growing good of the world is mostly dependent on unhistoric leaders." These are the people who show up every day, make tough decisions, build strong cultures, and quietly transform the lives of those around them. They exist in every organization, every community, and every field of human endeavor.

Your opportunity to lead is right in front of you. Stop waiting for permission, stop worrying about whether you're qualified, and stop believing that leadership is someone else's job. Start by clearly defining where you want to take your team, create a culture where people can do their best work, and then relentlessly focus on execution. The people around you are waiting for someone to show the way—that someone can be you.