On Clarity
#25|| Field Notes on Leading with Clarity
The One Thing
Work-life balance has become a distraction from the real problem, which is clarity.
If you only get one thing out of this post, it’s that balance is the outcome, not the fix. We've spent years chasing work-life balance like it's some kind of holy grail. But what if we're solving the wrong problem?
Balance isn't the goal. Ensuring clarity is.
It’s Not About Balance. It’s About Clarity.
A few weeks ago, Emma Grede’s now-viral soundbite made the rounds. Grede is the CEO of Good American and a founding partner of the billion-dollar shapewear company, Skims. She said,
“Work-life balance is your problem. It isn’t your employer’s responsibility.”
The clip was from Steven Bartlett’s podcast, “Diary of a CEO”.
But what stood out to me wasn’t the backlash. It was the framing. Once again, the conversation narrowed to a tired question: Who owns the balance?
And once again, we missed the point.
This is not a conversation about balance. It is a conversation about clarity.
Work-life balance is an outcome. Clarity is the system that makes it possible.
Grede's viral quote sparked debate because it frames work-life balance as purely personal discipline. But boundaries only work when the system around them makes them sustainable. When leaders build clear systems and set clear expectations, people can make clear decisions. Boundaries become easier to define, protect, and respect. Without that clarity, we fall into unspoken assumptions, mixed signals, and invisible rules that wear people down.
Work-life balance isn't about responsibility. It's about clarity. But our current chaos didn't happen overnight. Over three decades, technology transformed how we work before we could design systems to manage it. Email broke physical boundaries, smartphones erased time zones, and chat apps eliminated the last natural breaks in our workday. Each innovation promised productivity but created a new layer of always-on expectations.
The result? Vague scope, unclear urgency, and mixed signals create an underground playbook of assumptions. Without intentional systems to guide us, the rift between companies and their people grows into a full-blown chasm of misunderstandings, burnout, and stalled deliverables.
Grede proves this point in a less-quoted moment in the podcast when she says, "You can have a truly exceptional person in a dysfunctional company, and they don't do as well. Put someone less exceptional in a great system, and they level up."
I agree. People rise or sink with the systems around them. The best boundaries in the world won't help if your company's communication norms are chaotic and leaders are unclear about what they expect.
The best boundaries in the world won't help if your company's communication norms are chaotic and leaders are unclear about what they expect.
Clarity in Practice: A Tale of Two Messages
Here are two very different scenarios. Admittedly, I’ve been both the unclear leader and the overwhelmed employee.
In the first, a VP needs slides for Thursday's all-company meeting. She tags her message "FYI," schedules it for tomorrow morning, and notes they'll review it in their regular one-on-one. Her project manager, enjoying dinner with visiting parents, never sees a notification. At 8 a.m. the next day, she handles it calmly over coffee.
In the second, that same request comes as an untagged, contextless Slack message at 8:30 PM. The project manager abandons her family dinner, rushes home to guess at what's needed, and works late into the night. The next morning? The VP says it wasn't even urgent.
The difference isn't about working harder or having better boundaries. It's about having clear systems versus having none at all.
The Question That Made Me a Better Leader
Years ago, I started ending every 1:1 with:
"What needs clarity right now?"
At first, the team gave polite answers. “All good.” “Nothing right now.” But after a few weeks, one person finally spoke up.
“I’m trying to keep up with all the articles you’ve been sending,” she said, “but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be reading them or just skimming or what.”
It was funny but not funny. As a new manager, I had been forwarding essays, reports, and even seventy-page studies that I had only skimmed without any context, no labels, no signals, just a ton more to do dropped into their inbox. I thought I was providing value, sharing insightful articles with them, and proving I was a visionary leader. But the team thought it was mandatory reading.
The real problem was that we had no system, no shared norms for different kinds of communication, and no agreement on what required action or attention.
This wasn’t just a one-off misunderstanding. It was a systems failure.
We fixed that issue and clarified the tags on our emails–FYI, Action, Read Only, Urgent. We also started building a system with our other practices for making decisions, and even for when and how long to meet each week.
Leading with clarity will address the work-life balance issue once and for all. It will also help your team find more agency in their own work. Even Grede, beyond that viral soundbite, demonstrates this through her leadership. When you listen to her full interviews, you hear someone who is crystal clear about expectations, systems, and how work gets done.
That kind of clarity is powerful. It drives results. It shapes culture.
P.S.
My friend Soren Gordhamer just wrote his fourth book, The Essential: Discovering What Really Matters in an Age of Distraction, which launches on Tuesday, May 20th. The details of the local Bay Area launch event can be found here. I hope to see you there!
Speaking of books, ReCulturing turns three next Thursday. Around 15,000 copies now live on desks, nightstands, and bookshelves around the globe, and I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who helped make that happen. I’ll mark the occasion by sharing what this journey has taught me and offering what I’ve learned if you want to write a book. It will also feature cameo quotes from the allies who supported me and helped me make it happen.
ReCulturing + Lingua Franca at the Ferry Building in San Francisco
