Leadership is hard, and the beauty of leadership is that things don’t need to be perfect. Or, lrdhsp is hrad, and the buatey of ldrshp is taht tnhigs dn’ot need to be prft. Creating context and structure for your followers allows you to be imperfect, or I like to refer to, pfrt lrdhsp.

Recently, I was catching up with a former coaching client, Youseff. He was struggling to create a strategic plan that was clear and compelling for his team. Youseff had received a 360 review that mentioned critical feedback about his ability to create a plan that felt compelling to his team. He was caught up in all the details, and was looking for a big-picture structure that would alleviate the stress in trying to create something that was perfect. 

I walked Youseff through the same exercise that I walked Mirra through previously. You can read that article here. I wrote down the letters “Pfrt Lrdhsp” and asked him what he saw. “Perfect Leadership,” he said. Pfrt Lrdhsp may look like a jumble of words at first glance, but our brains fill in what’s missing  when the first and last letters are correct, even when there are letters missing. This particular phenomenon is called “typoglycemia” that demonstrates the ability of the human brain to read words even if the letters inside them are scrambled, as long as the first and last letters remain in the correct position. Typoglycemia is a fascinating demonstration of the efficiency and flexibility of our brain’s language processing abilities. It showcases how our brains can adapt and make sense of information even when presented with unconventional or scrambled word patterns.

In order to create a compelling plan with Youseff, he needed to embrace imperfections as he creates structure and context for his team. Just like Youseff had filled in the missing letters in “Pfrt Lrdhsp”, his team can fill in the missing elements in the plan. What are the structural elements he needs? I suggested the following ideas that fit into a PFRT model. 

In Dare to Lead, Brené Brown emphasizes that effective leaders need both empathy (caring) and boundaries (the pursuit of a plan). Empathy involves understanding and connecting with others on an emotional level, while setting boundaries involves having clear goals, expectations, and accountability. These elements help leaders create a culture of trust, belonging, and accountability within their teams or organizations. When the structure for your intentions starts with Plan (boundaries) and ends in Trust (empathy), your followers will naturally fill in the remaining elements. 

When your followers know the compelling plan, and they trust you and the team because of shared accountabilities, you can communicate imperfectly. You can even miss some of the elements while still achieving great leadership. I reminded Youseff that he should be striving for pfrt, not perfection. He walked away more confidently knowing that he should focus on continuing to make the plan compelling and developing the trust required to achieve great results.