Charts show data. Leaders provide direction.

Your diary is filled with coordination meetings.

You have to make decisions that your team could easily make themselves.

And you notice that you are increasingly coordinating rather than leading.

What you do then is explain, mediate and adjust even more. You clarify priorities and objectives. You get closer to the operation.

But often the problem is not with the execution.

It lies in (the lack of) direction.

When direction is absent, people start to behave logically: they create their own clarity. Each team makes choices that are perfectly justifiable within their role. And yet they constantly clash with each other.

Not because people don't want to work together.

Because they are each working towards a different vision of the future.

The leader then becomes the link between all these interpretations.

And that feels like busyness, not leadership.

Direction is not the same as objectives

Leaders often do set objectives.

‘We need to work more efficiently.’

‘We need to grow.’

‘We want to become more customer-focused.’

But objectives are not direction.

No one can work with an abstract word or a percentage. People need a picture. They need to be able to imagine what will be different in their daily work when they get there.

Storytelling is not a speech

Many leaders are frightened by the word storytelling. They think they suddenly have to be inspiring or compelling.

But leadership is not a film.

You don't have to be Al Pacino in the dressing room of Any Given Sunday, getting a team pumped up just before the game. Your team doesn't expect a dramatic monologue or applause at the end of the team meeting.

Storytelling in leadership is not about how beautifully you can tell a story.

It's about people knowing after the conversation: ah, that's why we're doing this — and what that means for their work tomorrow.

If that story is missing, people will fill in the blanks themselves. And people always fill in the blanks based on their own responsibilities. Then you end up with committed employees who work hard — but not in the same direction.

Communicating once is not enough

‘But I already told them that, didn't I?’

Probably. Only not everyone understood.

Not because people aren't listening. But because people process information differently. So what you explain once doesn't land with everyone.

Some employees understand something when they hear it.

Others when they see it.

Still others when they apply it themselves in their work.

And some only when they can read it at their leisure.

A story must be more than just an explanation.

You tell it in consultation, make it visible and link real decisions to it.

Direction becomes clear when employees begin to recognise it in their daily work — when they see why something is given priority and something else is not.

What changes when direction becomes clear

When direction becomes clear, something happens that usually surprises leaders.

You have to intervene less.

Teams solve more problems themselves.

Decisions shift to where they belong: within the team.

Not because you let go, but because people understand what they are working towards together.

Leadership is therefore not about steering harder.

It is about ensuring that people no longer have to guess.

And that does not start with figures.

It starts with a story that people can see.

Pause for thought

1. If I asked three team members separately where we are heading as an organisation, how many different answers would I get?
2. Have I translated my direction into a concrete picture of how the work will look different, or does it remain limited to objectives and figures?
3. When was the last time I made a decision (or stopped something) and explicitly stated it? We are doing this because it fits with where we want to go.

Direction does not arise when you find it clear.

Direction arises when your team understands it.