The Context Problem: Why Smart Leaders Misunderstand People

Each day that I stood among the stone-walled ruins of a former Tswana capital in South Africa, I found myself confronted by an extraordinary puzzle.

I had already spent several months mapping the site from aerial photographs, and I had surveyed much of the detail on the ground, so I knew this settlement was impressive. It was clear that thousands of people had once lived there. Complex arrangements of stone walls stretched for kilometres across the landscape. The charred remains of collapsed houses, overgrown pathways, giant cattle enclosures and productive industrial areas hinted at a sophisticated and thriving community that had flourished generations before.

Yet the more I looked, the more vividly I realised how little the archaeological remains could tell me on their own. Even after conducting extensive excavations, the stones and scattered pottery sherds, the faunal remains and even laboratory analyses of the metallurgical debris, were not enough.

That material data could tell me something about the ‘whats’, and even point to the ‘hows’ of life in a pre-colonial African town, but in isolation the archaeological evidence could not tell me much about the ‘whys’ that shaped this community.

Despite the impressive quantity and variety of material my team and I excavated at Marothodi, I became desperate to learn more about the human meanings that informed and guided the behaviours, choices and lived experiences of the community that lived there.

To understand why this place existed, why the town’s spatial arrangement took its distinctive form, how the settlement functioned socially and economically across status, gender and identities, and why it was eventually abandoned, I had to look beyond what was immediately visible. Gradually, as my PhD research continued, oral histories, regional politics, trade networks, environmental conditions, migration patterns, local histories and ethnographic insights all became part of the picture.

Only then, under what could be defined as the broad umbrella of cultural anthropology, did the fragments begin to form a coherent whole.

What began as an archaeological investigation gradually became something else: a lesson in the importance of context.

Since those fieldwork seasons in Africa two decades ago, I have come to realise that the same lesson extends far beyond archaeology. Whether we are studying a historical settlement, a modern organisation, a government department, a university, a healthcare system, or our own relationships, the challenge is remarkably similar.

Human behaviour only makes sense in context. And yet context is what we so often overlook.

The Illusion of Obviousness

Most of us move through the world assuming that our interpretations of events and circumstances are largely objective and accurate.

We observe a colleague’s behaviour and conclude that they are resistant to change. We encounter conflict between teams and assume poor communication is the problem. We see what looks like disengagement and assume a lack of motivation or respect. We observe a social practice in another culture and assume we understand its meaning.

The difficulty is that human behaviour rarely explains itself.

What appears obvious from the outside often reflects only a small part of a much larger, and usually more complex, picture.

An employee who appears resistant to change may have experienced repeated organisational restructures or instability that damaged trust. A cohort of learners who seem disengaged in class may be responding to unspoken incentives or invisible risks that unintentionally discourage collaboration or overt individual contribution. A community’s response to a policy or public health intervention may be shaped by historical experiences, complex relationship dynamics or cultural values that decision-makers know little about.

Without context, we often mistake symptoms for causes. In doing so, we risk misunderstanding, and sometimes negatively impacting, the very situations we hope to improve.

The View from Anthropology

For me, anthropology is much more than a purely academic subject. It is a fundamentally practical discipline that begins with a deceptively simple observation: people generally make sense within the worlds they inhabit.

Human practices that may appear strange, irrational, inefficient, inappropriate or problematic when viewed from the outside often become more understandable once we begin to appreciate the circumstances in which they emerged. 

This does not mean that all behaviour is beneficial or beyond critique. Nor does it imply that people do not exercise personal agency or make individual choices. Rather, it suggests that the pursuit of understanding should precede quick interpretation and judgement.

Anthropologists are trained to ask questions and practice patient, open-minded observation before reaching conclusions. 

What historical experiences have shaped this situation? What assumptions are being taken for granted? What overt or invisible social pressures are operating? What meanings do people themselves attach to their actions and circumstances? What broader systems and structures are influencing or restricting choices and behaviours?

These kinds of questions encourage us to move beyond surface appearances and towards a richer understanding of human experience.

The same mindset can be valuable far beyond anthropology. 

Leaders, educators, healthcare professionals, policymakers, consultants and managers all face situations in which success depends upon understanding people whose experiences differ from their own. 

The Observer is Part of the Picture

There is, however, another complication.

Context does not only shape the people and situations we observe. It also shapes us.

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned during years of fieldwork, research, teaching, staff development and leading intercultural teams is that observation is never entirely neutral.

Each of us brings assumptions, expectations, values, experiences, and social and cultural influences into every interaction. Many of these influences operate beneath conscious awareness.

We might assume our understanding of professionalism, leadership, efficiency, respect, accountability, honesty, courage or success is simply common sense. In reality, these ideas and the values that shaped them have histories.

They have been shaped by families, education systems, workplaces, societal norms, socio-economic and political contexts, power structures, and life experiences.

The challenge, then, is not simply understanding the contexts of others. It is becoming more aware of the contexts from which we ourselves are interpreting the world and our relationship to it.

This is where reflexivity becomes important.

Reflexivity involves developing the capacity to examine our own assumptions, reactions and interpretations. It challenges us to consider how our perspectives have been shaped and how those perspectives influence what we notice, what we overlook, what we dismiss, and how we make sense of what we encounter.

Far from weakening judgement, reflexivity often strengthens it by nurturing greater agility in how we make sense of the world. It allows us to recognise the limits of our perspective, allow for changes across time and experience, and remain open to learning.

Context is Never Fixed

Even this is not the end of the story.

Context is not a stable backdrop against which life unfolds. It is constantly changing. One of the reasons historical research matters is that it reminds us that today’s realities emerged through processes of change.

Communities evolve. Organisations evolve. Institutions evolve. Cultures evolve. Individuals evolve. And the specific ways in which each of these dimensions interacts with and shapes the others also changes over time. The circumstances that shape behaviour today may be very different from those that shaped behaviour ten years ago, or even yesterday.

This sensitivity to change is often missing from contemporary discussions about leadership, organisational development, and even intercultural communication. We frequently talk about organisations, communities or cultures as if they exist in a perpetual present. 

Yet every organisation has a history. Every team has accumulated experiences. Every institution, through its people, carries memories, stories, successes, failures and patterns that continue to influence behaviour long after the original events have passed.

To understand the present, we often need to understand the journey that produced it, and recognise that the journey consisted of many different and winding paths.

Leadership in a Complex World

The contemporary world presents leaders with unprecedented levels of complexity.

Globalisation, technological disruption, demographic shifts, geopolitical uncertainty, environmental pressures, and rapidly changing social expectations all create environments in which simplistic explanations become not only inadequate but increasingly dangerous.

In such circumstances, the natural temptation is often to seek certainty. Quick diagnoses. Simple frameworks. Universal solutions. But complexity frequently demands a different response.

It requires curiosity. Patience. Humility. A willingness to ask better questions before rushing towards answers.

The leaders who handle complexity most effectively are not necessarily those with the strongest opinions or the most experience. They are often those who have learned how to see more of the system they need to navigate. They recognise that behaviour emerges through the interaction of histories, relationships, incentives, identities, cultures, environments and meanings. They understand that context matters.

Towards a Different Way of Seeing

Looking back, I realise that the most important lesson I learned from studying the remains of a centuries-old African settlement had very little to do with archaeology. 

It was a lesson about human understanding.

The deeper I looked beneath the surface, the more complicated the picture became. But it also became more meaningful. In fact, it was only through exploring and integrating multiple forms of evidence that I could even begin to approach an understanding of the complex human experience that left those fragmented material clues on the ground.

The same principle applies today, in every arena of practice.

Whether we are working with international teams, designing public policy, leading organisational change, supporting communities, or reflecting on our own experiences, human behaviour rarely makes sense when viewed in isolation.

It only begins to make more sense when we widen the lens. When we consider context. When we examine our own assumptions. When we pay attention to history. When we recognise that situations and people (including ourselves) are constantly changing. 

Human behaviour makes sense in context. Context includes the observer. And context is never fixed. 

Perhaps more effective leadership, more fruitful collaboration, and wiser, more nuanced decisions begin with learning to see this more clearly.