Years ago, when my oldest daughter was about six,, I told her to stop doing something. She disobeyed, so I started to get up off the couch. When she realized she was about to get a spanking she looked at me waving her hands and said, “Wait—you haven’t counted to three yet!”

She wasn’t being defiant. She had just believed from my own behavior that sometimes I meant what I said and sometimes I didn't. Counting to three was, in her mind, the signal that she now needed to obey.

The lesson here is that without real and consistent accountability, there is poor clarity around behavior and performance.

Turns out, most leaders are sometimes counting to three.


How Leaders Count to Three Without Realizing It
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Just like my daughter learned to wait for a signal before taking me seriously, teams learn to wait for real consequences before they take leadership seriously. Here’s how that shows up in business:

Efficiency and Quality—We’ve agreed to certain standards and procedures, but some staff have a difficult time getting on board. For example, they respond to customers tomorrow when the expectation is today or they cut corners on process or documentation because they are too busy to do it right.

Missing Deadlines and Slow Execution—To Do items, projects, employee reviews, expense reports, and so on are regularly a few weeks late or “progressing” or over budget or whatever; just not done on time, on budget, and as expected. The company is losing “compounding effort.” The company that does all these things with discipline can move on to other things faster and they simply get more accomplished every quarter and every year.

Culture—The negative attitudes of a few team members are tolerated. They impact those around them and sometimes customer and vendor relationships.

Sales—Sales activity requirements and quotas are allowed to be missed. Time and money are wasted and company growth goals are not achieved.

Diminished Leadership Credibility—Your best team members get frustrated when their peers are allowed to bring a Mindset or Performance that is below the bar in any of the above areas. They lose faith in their leaders and the retention of those people is jeopardized.

No leadership team is perfectly consistent, but ignoring attitudes or performance that is below the bar or delaying feedback is counting to three.


What Clarity Looks Like in Practice

• Define the result they own. Not tasks. Outcome.
• Describe what it looks like when they’re killing it. Tasks, KPI’s, behaviors.
• Provide lots of feedback and coaching. Use the ICU framework. When someone drops           below the bar, coach harder for up to 60 days.
• Stop counting. Don’t tolerate attitude or performance below the bar. If clarity, feedback and   coaching aren’t working quickly. Don’t count. Lead. Make changes.


Part System, Part Skill, Part Willingness to Lead

Establishing clarity is a simple idea, but it is not easy. An excellent system that all leaders follow must be in place.

Creating and establishing the right expectations is a skill that must be developed with all leaders as well as the skills to provide quality feedback and performance. This includes how to skillfully have the tough conversations.

Finally, there must be individual and collective willingness to lead. This means leaders must be committed to establishing clarity, deploying their skills, and making hard decisions when their efforts to create clarity and to provide feedback and coaching don’t get the results expected.
Clarity isn’t just a leadership skill—it’s a leadership responsibility. Stop counting. Start leading.


Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
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• What attitudes or behaviors am I tolerating that send mixed signals?
• How am I “counting to three” in my business?

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