Code Brain | What It Takes to Be a "Leader": Three Essentials

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Every manager should first become a leader.

#Code Brain Ecosystem Connection, Cognitive Resonance

A while back, I was giving a public presentation with my boss when he suddenly asked me: "Tell me, what's the difference between a manager and a leader?"

Caught completely off guard, I scrambled to untangle my thoughts and find the right words, but all I managed was a stammering: "A leader is a more macro-level role than a manager." After the presentation ended...

My boss looked at me with disdain: "You went to a top global business school, worked in MBB consulting, and you can't even explain the difference between these two?"

I rushed to explain: "You sprung it on me. I was overthinking it and couldn't articulate it clearly in the moment."

Boss: "Yes, I did spring it on you. But the fact that you couldn't answer means you've never thought about this question in your management practice."

I hung my head in shame: "You're right, I haven't really thought about it before."

Boss: "You've been a department head for three or four years now, with a team of more than a dozen people. You need to seriously reflect on yourself. When it comes to deep thinking about things, you have major shortcomings."

The above is a real conversation between me and my boss.

That conversation felt like a bucket of cold water dumped over my head. I'd been muddling along as a manager for years, practiced numerous leadership projects during my MBA, yet had never distilled the underlying logic behind "manager" and "leader."

So I spent over a month in quiet reflection to conceive this article: What capabilities should an excellent leader possess?

This article will answer my boss's question about the difference between "managers" and "leaders," while also extending beyond it — essentially, it's my "homework assignment" to show him I've thought seriously about this.

Leader vs. Manager

When it comes to leading a team, we habitually use two words: "leader," which in English is leader; and "manager," which in English is manager. In many contexts these terms are used interchangeably, but in fact the distinction between them is quite significant.

The prerequisite for a manager is the existence of an organization — this could be a political party, a company, or a department. Regardless, there must first be an organizational node in the structure. This organization might have no people, but it needs organizational functions, responsibilities, and scale — the organizational design must come first. After that, when the organization formally begins operating, it needs people, a team. With a team comes the need for management. Therefore, a manager is someone authorized by the organization to manage people and teams.

The prerequisite for a leader is a group of people with shared goals and shared pursuits. This group could be a team within an organization, could span multiple organizations, or could be people with no organizational affiliation whatsoever. A leader is someone whom such a group collectively supports and follows in the direction they pursue. This is somewhat similar to today's KOLs (key opinion leaders).

From these two points, it's not hard to see that these two terms represent completely different meanings.

Manager:

  • Is "authorized" and "appointed" from the top down;
  • Bears only the responsibilities granted by the organization;
  • Can use and allocate only resources granted by the organization;
  • Needs to be accountable only to the organization.

Leader:

  • Is "elevated" and "supported" from the bottom up;
  • Bears only the responsibility of not betraying supporters' trust;
  • Derives power from followers, with limited and unstable callable resources;
  • Must be accountable to all followers.

Managers and leaders are not mutually exclusive. Often a good manager is first a good leader, and a good leader has strong potential to become a good manager. But conceptually, since "manager" requires an organization first, the scope of "leader" is broader than that of "manager."

Returning to the opening question, why do I want to first discuss how to become an excellent leader?

Because managers are granted by the organization, and often due to rapid organizational growth or other reasons, employees ill-suited for management positions end up in them. At such times, if we jump straight into management mechanics, it's easy to end up with cargo-cult imitation — and someone who "knows" management can be more terrifying than someone who doesn't.

Therefore, out of responsibility to oneself, the organization, and subordinates, every manager should first become a leader. In today's main text, I'll focus on sharing the three core capabilities for becoming a good leader.

01 Foresight — A Necessary Condition

Foresight is essentially the ability to see the future of something in a particular direction or dimension.

Imagine: if someone could see the future, would you be willing to listen to their opinions? Would you be willing to follow them?

To some extent, foresight is a necessary condition for someone to become a leader, and more importantly, it's a key consideration for the "social elite" when choosing leaders (the elite tend to be more rational).

How do we know if someone has foresight?

Actually, it's quite simple: see if they can consistently make correct decisions, and specifically, consistently make rare, difficult correct decisions. Throughout history, few have accomplished this. I'd like to use Chairman Mao as an example. If you flip through Party history, you'll discover that the Chairman's judgments on many matters were remarkably prescient. For instance, in On Protracted War, he laid out the war's outcome, key factors, evolutionary stages, and even approximate timelines for each stage with crystal clarity.

We often call Chairman Mao a "lingxiu" (supreme leader), and in fact this term represents the highest level of leader. His status as supreme leader wasn't manufactured — it was forged through one correct decision after another, refined through the crucible of history.

I'm making this point to demonstrate that the ability to see the future genuinely exists.

How do we make ourselves more foresighted?

I've attempted to summarize three methods for building one's "foresight," which I'll call: "The Right Path," "The Side Path," and "The Left Path."

The Right Path: Seeing the Objective Laws of Development

How do we see the objective laws of how things develop?

First, we need to see the essence of things — setting direction.

The so-called "essence of things" is the definition of a thing, answering the question of "what is it."

Recognizing the essence of things is critically important, as it determines the direction of our exploration of laws.

For example, we all say "a whale is not a fish but a mammal" — this is grasping the essence. Because we recognize this, our exploration of all whale-related laws must proceed in the direction of mammals.

At the same time, everyone must understand that the essence of a thing does not change, because once it changes, a new thing has emerged and the previous thing no longer exists. For instance, if whales suddenly changed from mammals to fish, we wouldn't say the essence of whales became fish — we'd say whales went extinct, and the new creature could be given a new name. Think about it, isn't this the logic?

Therefore, the definition of a thing's essence is extremely important — if wrong, the harder you work, the further you stray from "objective laws."

Second, recognize the principal contradiction at the thing's current stage — grasping priorities.

The essence of a thing doesn't change, but the principal contradiction at different stages may shift.

Another example: recently, internet companies have faced various policy restrictions from the state, a world apart from a few years ago. The fundamental reason for this change, I believe, is that society's principal contradiction has changed. Let's review together:

  • At the 1981 Sixth Plenum of the 11th Central Committee, our Party stated: The principal contradiction in our society is between the ever-growing material and cultural needs of the people and backward social production.
  • In the 2017 19th Party Congress report, our Party stated: The principal contradiction in our society is between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life.

Do you see? When the principal contradiction of a thing (socialist society) changes, it inevitably triggers changes from the inside out, in every aspect. So the changes in today's society are inevitable and irreversible. This was also the core basis for my judgment, upon returning to China, to not join an internet company but instead commit to private equity.

What must be emphasized here is that the principal contradiction at different stages of a thing is not subjectively determined by people, but objectively determined based on the thing's essence. This is like a doctor treating illness: for a patient afflicted with multiple diseases, the doctor must first recognize the essence — this is a human being — then based on various symptoms, deconstruct layer by layer to determine which illness is most critical at present, before proceeding with treatment. If this judgment fails, no matter how hard you work afterward, the patient's life remains in peril.

Finally, find the "law of causality" behind the principal contradiction — finding leverage points.

"All foundations of human society are built upon the 'law of causality'" — only those who truly understand this can appreciate the horror of the double-slit experiment.

In my understanding, the "law of causality" is essentially clarifying the direct influence of "input" on "output." The reason it's important to humanity is that once we master causality, we can influence "output" by adjusting "input." For those "inputs" that can be influenced, we often call them "actionable items."

Causality is humanity's window to seeing the future, and even more so the leverage point for influencing it. For those familiar with Amazon's working backwards method, what I'm saying should be readily apparent.

  • Mastering the essence of a thing means having comprehensive grasp of its possible development directions;
  • Mastering the current principal contradiction means having positioned its main development direction for a period of time;
  • Mastering the causality of the principal contradiction means being able to predict and influence the results of its development for a future period.

When we assemble this logic using the pyramid principle, we form our own thinking framework for judging things. Through observing or influencing "input" factors, we can see the future, and even influence it to some degree — equivalent to seeing the objective laws of development. (To some extent, the phrase "because you believe, you see" is the conclusion drawn from infinitely magnifying the effect of "actionable items.")

The Side Path: Inductive Summary of Historical Development

In "The Right Path," the methods mentioned are strongly correlated with one's depth of understanding of things, which many people cannot achieve — and I'm inadequate in many directions myself.

For those who can't do this, inductive summary of a thing's historical development is also an effective method. But compared to "The Right Path," this can only be called "The Side Path."

I wonder if you've had this experience: a veteran employee at a company may have average capabilities, but having experienced all the company's historical stages from startup to present, they can make predictions about certain decisions; certain industry veterans, drawing on their experience, can also make relatively accurate predictions about industry trends.

A simple exercise: you've lived with your parents long-term. When you make a mess at home, can you quickly predict your parents' reaction? For example: being served a "bamboo stir-fry" (a euphemism for a spanking).

The logic here is the same.

From a temporal perspective, everything carries a certain inertia in its development, and reviewing history allows us to make some predictions about future trajectories — especially in the short term. This is the underlying logic of "learning from the past to foresee the future."

When I first started in finance, my manager recommended many books to me. One was 30 Years of Reform and Opening in China's Banking Industry. He said: "If you read this book thoroughly, you'll understand how China's financial system was built, and more importantly, how the state thinks about and approaches finance. Then you'll be able to form your own judgments about where the industry is headed."

Looking back, his words were somewhat exaggerated — probably just a tactic to get me through that dry industry yearbook. After all, it's no divine text; it certainly couldn't enable me to "know autumn from a single leaf."

Yet if you can connect this book to the key moments and events of China's reform and opening-up, and think through them carefully, your understanding of the financial industry will indeed reach a new level. That helps with predicting where the industry goes next.

Personally, I think studying history is a pretty good supplementary method. On one hand, you can use known historical changes to test your own mental frameworks, filling gaps and upgrading your thinking — this is essentially the same logic behind the retrospective mechanisms many companies implement. On the other hand, you can use past history to identify and summarize the dimensions that drive change, which serves as a useful reference and complement for building mental frameworks.

But remember: when studying history, don't just know what happened — understand why. Merely summarizing patterns can easily cause you to get lost in the dizzying complexity of change, and when dramatic shifts occur, you may well fall into a trap. Mark my words on this.

The Left Path: Talking to Wise People

If the "side door" is merely a non-standard method, then the "left path" verges on the heretical.

Talking to wise people is more about referencing others' cognitive directions and dimensions of thought — using others as mirrors to polish your own mental framework. But you must never use this as the foundation for building your ability to "see the future."

Tragically, many people in reality do exactly this — for no reason other than it's simple and easy.

So now we have crowds of people scheming daily about how to connect with industry big shots, or angling for invites to industry seminars, extracting a phrase or half-sentence of someone's future predictions, then repackaging it as their own insight to sell. Chasing fame and profit as secondhand dealers in thinking — this absolutely cannot be called "seeing the future."

On the matter of seeing the future, I hope everyone "walks the right path, supplements with side doors, references the left path" — quiets the mind, stays grounded, and solidly builds capabilities that belong to you alone.

02 Vision — The Critical Factor

If someone has foresight and can see the future, does that automatically mean people will follow them?

Let's imagine someone who can indeed see the future. But they have no ambition, drifting through life day by day; they consider only the present and themselves in everything they do, completely disregarding others' feelings; they're strict with others and lenient with themselves, hurling abuse at the slightest flaw. Do you think anyone would follow this person?

Now imagine another person: when their homeland was weak, barbarians invaded, and the people suffered in misery, they set the grand ambition of "studying for the rise of China"; in everything they did, their heart held the world, the Party, the people — never themselves; for the greater good, they could endure humiliation and make compromises; they were strict with themselves and lenient with others, had no children of their own, yet was father to many orphans of martyrs; they led by example in separating public and private, never taking a penny from the public, and even on official business meals paid in full with cash and food stamps...

Now, would you follow someone like this? I think the answer speaks for itself.

If foresight is a necessary condition for the "social elite" to choose a leader, then the size of a person's vision determines how many "ordinary people" will follow them.

When I had just been promoted to management, my manager always said I hadn't "opened up my vision," which would affect my future management development. Honestly, I didn't understand at the time. Only through the ups and downs of my career did I come to understand: how large a person's vision is determines how large a thing they can do.

Online encyclopedias define vision as: the scope of one's cognition of things. But when applied to people, I prefer to interpret it through three dimensions: ambition, breadth of mind, and bearing.

One: Ambition Must Be Lofty

There's a line in The Analects that I deeply agree with: "Aim for the highest, and you'll land in the middle."

In fact, during one-on-one conversations with my reports, I occasionally ask what drives them to keep improving themselves in their careers. This is actually a tough question. Their motivations are remarkably uniform: either wanting a high salary, say a million RMB annually; or a higher position, like management — which ultimately still leads back to a high salary; and quite a few simply can't answer at all.

Many times I hold back from pressing further. Once I asked a follow-up: "And after you reach that million-RMB salary?"

I could clearly sense my report freeze for a moment. After some thought, they said: "Then see if I can get an even higher salary?"

"Specifically how much? 2 million? 5 million? Breaking ten million?" I pressed.

"No no no, nowhere near ten million. If I could hit 5 million, that'd be great. Not much difference after that." Perhaps sensing I was joking, their answer grew lighter.

Then I asked a question they completely couldn't answer: "Suppose you're already making 5 million a year — what then drives you to keep improving?"

I want to pose the same question to you reading this: what drives you to keep improving in your career?

Now think again: if your leader's ambition tops out at 5 million RMB annually, would you genuinely want to follow them?

So how do you set a lofty ambition?

Honestly, I don't know. I can't help others define their own ambitions. But I can offer three criteria and one practical method.

Criterion 1: Ambition must come from the heart

I once spoke with a digitalization lead at a new energy vehicle company. I found him remarkably ambitious.

Over dinner once, he mentioned that the reason he passed up data analytics opportunities in other industries to stick with this role was "to cultivate a generation of talent that understands both manufacturing and data, so that our country's manufacturing industry can have a future."

I believe these words came from his heart, because I knew his salary. If he wanted, he could jump to the internet industry as a data lead and get a 100% pay raise.

This is the power of ambition — the spiritual force that drives someone to persevere through hardship.

Criterion 2: Ambition is preferably medium- to long-term

Setting an ambition is a serious matter requiring prolonged thought and reflection. If the ambition is too short-term, you'll easily fall into confusion once it's achieved.

Many major internet companies are now culling "old rabbits" — older employees in management positions with high salaries who don't work hard and produce nothing. Have you ever wondered: if these so-called "old rabbits" hadn't worked hard back then, could they have been promoted to management with high salaries? If they were all lazy, where did those years of high-speed internet company growth come from?

I suspect these people were like my report — they made a million-RMB salary their ambition. Before achieving it, they were naturally full of drive. But once achieved, or even far exceeded, what motivation remained to keep striving? Slowly, they became "old rabbits."

Of course, if you haven't found a medium- to long-term ambition, a short-term one is fine too — but you must remain aware of this issue.

Criterion 3: Ambition must benefit the country and the people

I won't elaborate on this point. Those who don't understand probably aren't online right now anyway.

As for the method for finding your ambition: I suggest lying quietly in bed on a quiet night, thinking about what you want to do. If it's something that benefits the country and people, whose accomplishment would make your heart surge with pride and explosive satisfaction; whose neglect would make you pound your chest in regret and toss and turn sleepless — then congratulations, you may not be far from a lofty ambition.

Two: Breadth of Mind Must Be Expansive

If ambition determines the magnitude of one's driving force moving forward, then breadth of mind determines how many people one can see before them while moving forward.

The ancients divided Buddhism into Mahayana and Hinayana: Mahayana saves others before saving oneself; Hinayana saves oneself without saving others. The breadth of mind here is like this distinction between Mahayana and Hinayana.

For example, someone's ambition might be "to continuously explore the essence of this world, enabling me to see things more clearly and thoroughly." This is a fine ambition, but only for themselves — it's difficult to make others want to follow them.

Similarly, I still have no way to help you expand your breadth of mind. I can only offer two suggestions for self-reflection.

Self-Reflection 1: Are You Standing High Enough?

Sometimes insufficient breadth of mind comes from not standing high enough.

For example:

  • Doing data analytics within a small business team, you only care about that team's business needs, focusing on delivering this small slice of requirements;
  • Doing data analytics across an entire business department, you care about multiple teams' needs, focusing on building a reusable tool;
  • Doing data analytics across an entire company, you care about differentiated demands across departments, focusing on building a platform;
  • Doing data analytics across an entire industry, you care about heterogeneity across companies at different stages, focusing on setting industry standards.

See what I mean? Often breadth of mind is "forced out" — whether by objective circumstances or by forcing yourself.

If you lack objective opportunities to work at the department, company, or industry level, I suggest trying to elevate yourself one level higher in your positioning and thinking — this may expand your breadth of mind.

For instance, if objectively you're working for a small business team, instead consider: how would I do this across the business department? If objectively for one department, consider: how would I do this across the company? And so on.

Self-Reflection 2: Are You Considering the Big Picture in Benefit Distribution?

Sometimes insufficient breadth of mind comes from your "seat" not being properly aligned.

There's a workplace saying: "Where you sit determines what you think." The "seat" here refers to the interest demands of your department or team.

People are self-interested — it's human nature. But let human nature run rampant, and you get this result:

  • Your team builds a tool, keeps the benefits to itself, and rolls it out within the team — smooth sailing;
  • Your team builds a tool, keeps the benefits to itself, and tries to roll it out across the department — uphill battle;
  • Your team builds a tool, keeps the benefits to itself, and tries to roll it out company-wide — forget about it;
  • Your team builds a tool, keeps the benefits to itself, and tries to roll it out across the industry — you've lost your mind.

Thinking about the bigger picture requires some knowledge of game theory, and I'd recommend everyone find time to study it. But using game theory in real life isn't like solving math problems — you absolutely need to bring some EQ with you, remember that.

3. Magnanimity: The Capacity to Be Broad

If ambition determines the driving force behind one's progress, and breadth of mind determines how many people one can see along the way, then magnanimity determines how many people one can lead forward together.

Liu Bang dared to publicly admit that he was "inferior to Zhang Liang in strategy, inferior to Xiao He in governance, and inferior to Han Xin in military command" — yet he employed them without suspicion, and ultimately seized the empire. Chongzhen, by contrast, killed those he doubted and dismissed those he distrusted. In seventeen years of rule, he went through fifty chancellors, left a final note blaming the world, and hanged himself on Meishan.

At this point, I ask you to look inward:

  • If you had a subordinate far more capable than you in some area, how would you feel? Indifferent? Pleased? Or jealous?
  • If you had a capable subordinate who showed you no respect, how would you feel? Indifferent? Pleased? Or angry?
  • If you had a great project and another team wanted in, how would you feel? Indifferent? Welcoming? Or resistant?
  • ...

Seeing my own inferiority, being called out, watching my prized project get taken away — I don't know about you, but I definitely couldn't be happy about it.

Magnanimity — I still think this is something you're born with, nearly impossible to cultivate later. At least I haven't managed it yet.

I suspect most of you reading this are hoping to get promoted and want your boss to see you as having "big-picture thinking." Since Blank Swordswoman's methods are all so hard to practice, I'm worried you'll send me hate mail. So, at this point, I feel I should offer a shortcut to appearing格局-driven — though it's only surface-level, suitable for those currently at individual-contributor levels.

The solution is simple: whatever your current role, whatever you're working on, take one step further:

Ambition: Don't just look at the present — think six months to a year ahead;

Breadth of mind: Don't stop at your current role — stand in your manager's shoes when thinking through problems;

Magnanimity: If you can't genuinely achieve this, fall back on the art of endurance. I don't have any better methods.

An employee who projects all this externally gives the impression of always standing in leadership's position, consistently taking the long view, and remaining unflappable through praise or criticism — if such a person weren't promoted, it would be downright unreasonable.

03 Public Expression — The Efficient Method

"Even fragrant wine fears a deep alley." A leader may have vision and格局, but how to make that known quickly to the masses? Public expression is an excellent method.

Here I divide public expression into speaking and communication (writing is also a form of public expression, but we won't expand on that here).

Look at the leaders around you — isn't each one's speaking and communication ability quite strong? After all, as a leader, you need sustained, high-frequency communication with your followers to continuously earn their support and attract new followers to join (somewhat like elections in the West).

So it can be said: if a leader wants maximum support, speaking and communication ability is essential. And unlike vision and格局 above, speaking and communication can be improved through practice.

Speaking — One Person's Words Stronger Than an Army of Millions

U.S. President Obama successfully entered the White House through public speaking, becoming America's first Black president. Speaking can indeed inspire hearts and even influence an organization or a nation. Look at entrepreneurs like Lei Jun, Jack Ma, and Yonghao Luo — which of them isn't a master orator? Through deeply charismatic speeches, they led their teams to write business legends.

But they're too far from us. Based on my own experience:

1. Speaking is something you have to practice

Many things have no shortcuts, or rather, shortcuts are built on hard practice. To truly change yourself, you must first practice hard.

After my first presentation, I tasted the sweetness of success. But I still deeply resisted public speaking, so I kept "trapping" myself.

The specific method was constantly setting public flags — announcing I'd share data analysis with everyone on Friday, or directly scheduling a team work report with my manager.

Every time I set such a flag, I'd internally collapse. Because it meant from that moment until sharing day, all my time would be spent in anxiety.

I'd finish my deck as quickly as possible, then practice my speaking content repeatedly, striving for muscle memory — because only then could I complete the share or report despite nerves.

Yet even with decent results, I'd need about two weeks to recover from the tension before daring to trap myself again.

Thus I cycled through constant "traps" and "fillings," and after about half a year, I gradually grew numb and my speaking pace quickened. After roughly a year, I barely overcame my resistance.

Only later did I learn this process is called "psychological desensitization."

2. Speaking has techniques

After completing "psychological desensitization," I began gradually focusing on the effectiveness and quality of my speaking.

I found two main factors affecting my speaking quality: first, feeling nervous standing before a group; second, easily forgetting content when there was much to cover. And nervousness worsened forgetting, which intensified my worry about forgetting, which in turn intensified nervousness. Perfect — a complete negative reinforcement loop.

After consulting many people, I gradually discovered techniques to break this negative loop.

First, for nervousness before crowds, the main issue is that listeners focus their gaze on the speaker — for any organism, this is a danger signal (like the Dark Forest theory). I used to try avoiding people's gazes, but the more I hid, the more nervous I became. The correct approach is to "look back" — make eye contact with your audience.

This doesn't mean staring directly into listeners' eyes — that would make them uncomfortable. Rather, focus your gaze between their nose and mouth, roughly at the philtrum. This avoids making listeners uncomfortable while giving you security through returned gaze.

Forgetting content is even simpler to solve. PowerPoint has Presenter View; the easiest method is putting notes in the memo. But when I tried this, I felt prone to "memo dependency," turning speaking into recitation. I then improved this: on each slide, identify a few keywords as content prompts, "hidden" within the slide as I created it. This way, if I forgot, I only needed to find the keywords to remind myself.

With these two techniques, I instantly established my positive reinforcement loop, becoming more confident and controlled when presenting.

3. Speaking has tricks

Beyond the techniques above, speaking has many tricks. For example:

  • At the start, do some Q&A interaction with the audience — it helps close distance and reduce psychological pressure;
  • During the speech, if you forget something, slowly walk aside for a sip of water, giving yourself time to calm and think;
  • If extremely nervous before going on stage, consider holding a bent paperclip (or similar object) in your hand — physical stimulation can effectively reduce psychological pressure;
  • During speaking, some self-deprecation (mind the scale) can greatly reduce pressure;
  • ...

With enough practice, you'll find tricks that suit you and improve your speaking effectiveness.

As a former public speaking phobic, I deeply understand those who fear it. Precisely because of this, I founded a nonprofit speaking club within Decimal Point to help people take solid steps toward becoming leaders.

Communication — Human Communication Ability Accounts for 85% of Success

Carnegie once said that human communication ability accounts for 85% of success, with the remaining 15% being expertise and other factors.

I deeply agree — no commercial activity exists without communication, including our exchanges with family, friends, and loved ones.

Strictly speaking, communication divides into two parts: expression and listening. These are both relatively independent and mutually causal — many who seem poor at expression actually have listening problems. I'll explain each separately, then combine them, striving to make communication accessible.

Expression is the textual presentation of thought. Simply put, getting your ideas out. Yet regrettably, human vocabulary granularity exceeds thought granularity, so often what someone says is completely opposite to what they think. Therefore, to express clearly, work on three aspects:

1. Word choice must be precise

As I mentioned, vocabulary granularity exceeds thought granularity, so any idea becomes distorted when spoken. We can't change this — we can only reduce distortion.

Thus when speaking, choose words with extreme care. If you follow our government's official documents, you'll find they're extremely particular about word choice. Often in government work reports, when discussing something, just a few words change from last year, or even mere repositioning of vocabulary, can indicate shifts in thinking.

2. Logic in your mind must be clear before expression

Since expression is the textual presentation of thought, if thought is chaotic, expression cannot be clear. So "speaking clearly" requires first "thinking clearly." And what counts as "thinking clearly"? Having logic.

I recommend mentally "typesetting" what you plan to say — the same way you learned to structure essays in elementary school, using a "thesis–support–conclusion" format:

  • The first "thesis" states your main idea up front;
  • The "support" provides evidence or proof for your idea;
  • The final "conclusion" summarizes and restates your point.

Once you've mapped this out, run through it mentally. Check whether the logic holds together and whether your proof is sufficient. If everything checks out, you're ready to put it into words.

Sound familiar? That's right — from elementary school onward, when our Chinese teachers had us divide paragraphs and write summaries, they were essentially training this exact skill.

3. Always watch for "context" gaps in expression

Every conversation has context. For example:

Zhang San runs into Li Si and says: "Li Si, you're not cutting it."

What does Zhang San mean? Impossible to say. But add some context: Zhang San is Li Si's boss. Yesterday he asked Li Si to handle something, and Li Si dropped the ball again. Now do we understand?

Change the context: Zhang San and Li Si are close friends who just finished a game together. Li Si went 0-9 on his hero. What does Zhang San mean now?

See how crucial context is? So when expressing yourself, always check whether your context aligns with the other person's.

Now that we've covered expression, let's talk about listening.

Listening moves in the opposite direction — it's the mental translation of words back into thought. Simply put: taking the words the other person sends your way and converting them back into their intended meaning in your own mind. Again, with coarse-grained words and fine-grained thoughts being converted back and forth, distortion is inevitable. To become a better listener, I suggest working on three areas:

1. Manage your facial expressions while listening

Speakers constantly observe their listeners, so a listener's expressions matter enormously. This is why face-to-face communication beats phone calls — it directly affects what the speaker does next. This is what I mean when I say the two are "independent yet mutually causal."

So don't show negative expressions like annoyance, contempt, or anxiety. These only trigger negative emotions in the speaker, making their job harder and helping no one.

Conversely, expressions of confusion, agreement, or disagreement can be used strategically. If something seems logically off, a puzzled look may prompt the speaker to elaborate on their reasoning.

2. Align context when listening

As a listener, you need to be selective about which context to apply when interpreting information. It's like decrypting intelligence — use the wrong codebook and you'll either get nothing or something completely distorted.

Context mismatches happen most often in workplace communication, especially between superiors/subordinates or peers. The reason is simple:

  • With family, you share full context every day;
  • With completely unfamiliar teams, context is essentially empty;
  • But with bosses, reports, and peers — you have overlapping work exposure yet information gaps — so context gets misapplied constantly.

Listeners have an obligation to check whether contexts are aligned. There are two scenarios for mismatched context:

  1. The listener lacks context entirely and has no idea what the speaker is talking about. Interrupt immediately and say you don't have the background — align context first. Otherwise everything that follows is wasted breath.

  2. The listener thinks they have context, but things feel increasingly off — neither the logic nor what you know about the speaker from daily interaction makes sense. Again, interrupt. State the context as you understand it and ask for confirmation.

3. When organizing your response, adapt to the speaker's logical framework

Communication is a two-way street. After listening, you'll need to respond. So organize your thoughts while you listen, but adapt to the speaker's framework. If you truly can't adapt, first explain your own framework clearly, then map theirs onto it.

For example: Zhang San and Li Si are talking. Zhang San makes five points. If Li Si agrees with all five, he should respond point by point, one-to-one.

If Li Si finds Zhang San's framework messy and wants to restructure it into three points, he should do this:

"First, I think your five points can be consolidated into three categories, which might make our follow-up discussion clearer. Let me suggest this and see if it works:

I think it should be A, B, and C, where A covers your first and second points, B covers your third and fourth points partially, and C corresponds to your fifth point.

Does that framing work? If so, let's discuss using A-B-C."

Having covered expression and listening separately, let's summarize common communication problems. If your work conversations often feel stuck, use this as a mirror:

  1. Misaligned context — probably responsible for 50% or more of communication failures;
  2. Misaligned logical frameworks — another frequent culprit;
  3. Poor facial expression management, increasing communication costs;
  4. Being overly implicit, expecting others to read between the lines, artificially raising costs;
  5. Chaotic thinking, with logic that was never straightened out to begin with;
  6. Choosing phone or voice calls, losing massive amounts of facial and body language information;
  7. Imprecise word choice by the speaker, creating ambiguity;
  8. Inaccurate vocabulary interpretation by the listener, generating misunderstanding.

There are many more pitfalls in communication, but this covers the essentials.

Closing Thoughts

If you've made it this far, congratulations — you've finished a 10,000-word piece on leadership (and being a leader), distilled from my years in business school plus nearly a decade at MBB consulting and private equity.

As a woman who's spent ten years navigating the workplace, I deeply understand the desire to become a "manager." But management really can't be rushed.

Over my career, I've seen many people promoted to management before they were truly ready. Aside from a few who grew quickly, most either sent their teams into chaos or were later stripped of their management roles. Either outcome is deeply damaging to one's career.

This article focuses on becoming a leader, but the ultimate goal is helping you reach a management position. I hope more managers reach their roles through natural growth rather than forced promotion — that's better for the organization, for the manager, and for the team.

Finally, if you can't commit to all the training above, just strive to be someone who speaks with grace, acts with warmth, and has intellectual depth. That's where leadership development begins.

This article is republished from Kongbai Nvxia (ID: kongbainvxia) and does not represent the official position of Source Code Capital.