The Prompt Leader [Part 5 of 5]
Here's the plot twist I've been holding back...
The best teams don't wait for better prompts.
They prompt their leaders for what they need.
(Think about it. When's the last time someone on your team prompted YOU?)
Remember Part 1? Those brilliant teams "failing" under certain leaders?
Here's what actually happened...they never learned the organization's hidden patterns. Nobody prompted them with context.
So they couldn't prompt back for clarity.
But watch what happens when you flip the script:
You: "Questions?"
Them: "Hey, why are we prioritizing this now? What's the customer pain we're solving?"
You: "Let me know if you need anything."
Them: "I could move faster with direct access to analytics. Can we make that happen?"
The complete system?
It's simpler than you think:
C.O.N.T.E.X.T.
- Culture Code (make hidden rules visible)
- Outcome Clarity (define success in measurable terms)
- Networked Knowledge (living data, not dead docs)
- Tool Freedom (let them choose their weapons)
- Explicit Reasoning (show thinking, not just output)
- X-factor Calibration (consciously adjust risk)
- Trust Boundaries (clear constraints enable creativity)
Turn "B players" into "A players."
This happens in sports as in business. Not through training but through better context engineering.
For leaders who get this first, it's a massive arbitrage opportunity.
Your team is already GPT-4. You would not have hired them if you didn't think so.
They're waiting for your prompt. They’re waiting to be leveraged properly.
How will you start to re-engineer their context?
(More importantly, what will you prompt your team to prompt you for?)
You cannot have performance without understanding…
… And you cannot have understanding without context.