The organizational and leadership landscape has been significantly shaped by the concepts of intelligence and emotional quotients in the last decade. IQ assesses cognitive abilities and reasoning skills, while EQ focuses on understanding and managing emotions, both personally and in others. However, there's a missing element involving the inherent messiness of human behavior, the ambiguity quotient. 

The concept of the ambiguity quotient is a recent emergence that's still being defined, but AQ typically represents an individual's ability to navigate ambiguity. It's a rarely discussed subject that can play a larger role in leadership skills or strategies. It's about how we respond when we're uncertain, when doubt dominates discussions, and when we feel directionless or rudderless. It's a concept closely related to tolerance and adaptability.

We often envision people as cohesive parts of streamlined systems, yet individuals are complex, often unsure of their direction, and grappling with self-doubt. This ambiguity—or what we like to call the gray—is a significant challenging factor in human communication and an obstacle to the achievement of common organizational goals.

At Aim & Build Consulting and Development/Listen Louder, a Spokane-based organizational strategy company, we are guided by a fundamental truth in business: Human dynamics are often the most complex and critical to manage. Developing AQ skills can help leaders manage these dynamics.

In our organizational design and psychology consulting practice, we work with a variety of organizations and have observed that many leaders and consultants focus on instructing people, but very few actually try to understand them. Our team often refers to a pivotal conversation with the CEO of a large certified public accountant firm, who once said that he anticipated accounting challenges in school, during internships, and while building up his firm, but it turned out that he didn’t have many accounting problems. The real obstacles have always been human problems. 

Those situations happen in organizations more often than not. While legal affairs, highly technical elements, and financial matters offer clarity for leadership to follow, much of the rest of a company's operations function in a gray area, for instance within a company's culture, vision, and general strategy. That gray area is what the majority of organizations are dealing with on a daily basis.  

Critical question

A critical question for leaders to consider is: Does your organization have a purpose, and is it clear to everyone? We're not talking about strategies, tactics, or tasks. We're talking about the overarching north star that guides every level of your organization.

This is an issue that most organizations haven't fully resolved. In other words, before trying to have a conversation, we need to make sure we're actually having the same conversation. 

Developing AQ starts with understanding a few key pointers: 

• Maintain composure: The gray can be a very awkward space, but it’s important to avoid panicking and prevent others from panicking when dealing with uncertainty.
• Embrace iteration: Accept that finding solutions in the AQ realm is an iterative process that takes time.
• Trust your team: Remember why you hired your team—for their valuable contributions. They will be part of the AQ solution if you can become an incubator of talent.  

While defining the milestones for your organization is your responsibility, leaders often make critical mistakes by trying to dictate how the teams that were hired to provide solutions should reach those milestones. 

Leaders with the strongest AQ skills are remarkably comfortable with silence. There is significant strength and high AQ in leaders who set the general direction for their teams, ask their teams how to actually get there, and then genuinely allow them to answer. If you don't, you're micromanaging. If you do, you will encounter two types of situations. 

Two scenarios may arise when applying AQ in the workplace.

1. Rational solutions: With active listening, facilitation, and conceptual guidance, you can help your team develop a robust roadmap.
2. Irrational matters: In our executive coaching and leadership development sessions, we frequently encounter team members grappling with profound individual questions, such as, do I have the skills to do my job?; can I trust people enough to delegate?; am I being judged because I'm a different gender?; do I have to work harder than others due to my unique traits?; or simply, individuals struggling with personal issues that impede their professional bandwidth. This demands an even higher level of AQ from leadership. We've heard many leaders say it's not a problem, and to leave personal issues at the door, however, in modern corporate America, it's crucial to recognize that personal and professional problems cannot be separated. The resolution requires genuine care. 

Investing in deeper personal relationships will be an incredibly positive move for leaders who must navigate a delicate balance of assisting team members in resolving personal matters without crossing boundaries that they are neither invited to nor should they cross. Leaders need to understand which personal beliefs are acting as limiting factors by asking numerous questions while allowing others the space to share, or to not share, their answers aloud, ensuring team members feel comfortable with whatever they choose to disclose. Our practical leadership development experience has consistently shown that helping others is more about removing perceived obstacles to open communication and less about imparting knowledge.

Organizational alignment

Every aspect of your organization should operate in parallel, so that different functions, departments, and teams can work simultaneously for improved flexibility, execution, and innovation potential. Leaders that develop their AQ will have a better understanding of how to align individual coaching with the organization's north star. 

We have developed a concept that we call contextual coaching at Aim & Build Consulting and Development/Listen Louder to ensure that coaching aligns with an organization's goals. 

If any of these areas are challenging, seek support from experts who have mastered AQ to help you, your teams, and organization. Remember not to panic about the gray areas, have a well defined north star, and develop your aptitude to set outcomes without setting the pathway to those outcomes.  

Alex Barrouk is the founding director of Spokane-based Alex Barrouk Consulting & Development LLC, which does business as Aim & Build Consulting & Development/Listen Louder. He can be reached at [email protected]; 310.980.0989. 

Susan Foster-Dow is a senior consultant with Aim & Build Consulting and Development/Listen louder. She can be reached at [email protected].