You and your context

As Edgar Schein (2018) put it, company values are the guiding principles that shape culture. But not all values are written down. Unwritten rules — the patterns of behaviour and language people watch for — can be just as influential, sometimes more.

Mature leadership reads both. You align with the stated values, and you make the unwritten ones discussable. A culture that can name its own unwritten rules can change them.

Stakeholders are anyone who can affect, or is affected by, your initiative — customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, regulators, and a long list of less obvious ones who hold informal power.

The book uses Mendelow's matrix (1991) to plot each one by power and interest, then matches strategy to quadrant: Manage closely, Keep satisfied, Keep informed, Minimum effort. Different cadence, different depth, different communication style. Pair it with the Stakeholder Interaction Model and you have a real plan, not a list.

Your colour preferences shape how you work and when you work best. Strong red? You're organised and driven, but you over-work and skip recovery. Strong yellow? Spontaneous and adaptive, but you struggle to prioritise. Strong green? Mornings are gold. Strong blue? Afternoons let you reflect and analyse.

Stop optimising the calendar. Start managing the energy underneath it.

Matrix management is unnatural. Most of us were trained to expect a single line of authority; the matrix gives us many. Done well, it brings business units and cross-organisational functions together. Done badly, it produces meetings and no decisions.

Leading without direct authority means leading through stakeholders — through trust, clarity, and the quiet work of nemawashi: preparing the roots before transplanting the tree. Japanese companies treat it as the first step of any decision — share the impending change with each person, build consent root by root, and the formal meeting becomes a confirmation, not a fight.

Mark Samuel's Accountability Loop (2004) maps two contrasting cycles. The victim loop — ignore, deny, blame, rationalise, resist, hide — is disempowering and keeps you stuck. The accountability loop — recognise, own, forgive, self-examine, learn, take action — starts with setting an intention and moves through ownership to deliberate action.

Imperfection is embraced. Self-examination is welcomed. The space between stimulus and response, as Viktor Frankl wrote, is where your power lies — and your growth, and your freedom.

Most of us avoid clarity because we tell ourselves we're being kind, when what we're actually doing is being unkind and unfair. Brené Brown's line is the chapter's last word, and it deserves a wall:

"Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind."