It's the simple things that make a good leader.

The simple recipes are often the best.

This week my Dad and I were discussing a savoury mince recipe he had cooked from the Country Women’s Association cookbook he picked up a few years ago on a trip through country NSW.

Savoury Mince was one of my favourites as a kid. As a child of the 70’s there were few recipes I would say I loved…I can list a few I hated - Chicken Chow Mein with cabbage and Keens curry powder, Corned Beef and white sauce, mushy overcooked peas - but Mum’s savoury mince I absolutely loved and it was even better the next day on toast.

Dad said his attempt was lovely, but it didn't taste quite like Mum's, so naturally, we started the investigation.

Did it have worcestershire sauce? Yes.

Peas and corn? Yes. Frozen? - because Mum would only have used frozen. Yes.

Sugar? Yes. His sister suggested sultana's. No - I don't think Mum used sultanas.

Maybe Mum added tomato sauce. She always put tomato sauce in her spaghetti bolognaise.

We talked about the mince. The pans. The quantities. Mum probably cooked enough to feed a small army, whereas Dad was cooking for one. The problem was, Mum never really followed a recipe so we couldn't quite put our finger on what was different.

But it was still delicious.The basics were there. ‘Same-same, but different’ as the saying goes.

And probably, the biggest difference was simply that Mum wasn't the one who made it. The recipe brought back lots of memories, but the person who created those memories for Dad wasn't there anymore.

This made me think about the conversation I had been having lately about leadership and the complexity of workplaces.

All different organisations. All with different people. And different circumstances. Yet underneath all of that, many of the issues are very similar. And often, they aren't actually complicated problems.They're the basics that seem to be the key factor.

Communication is a good example.

Sometimes there is not enough communication. People are kept on a strict 'need to know' basis and then feel blindsided when a decision is made. Sometimes it is too much communication. So much information is flying around that people become anxious, overwhelmed or simply stop listeningSometimes it is avoiding the conversation altogether.

A regular one-on-one doesn't happen. A small issue isn't addressed. An assumption is made instead of a question being asked. Or someone sends a five-paragraph email when a two-minute conversation would have sorted it out.

Leadership can feel complicated because we sometimes think we need a whole new recipe when we step into the role. We think we need to communicate differently. We can't say what we used to say because we're now the manager. We ask someone else to check in on a team member because we don't want to overstep or trigger a negative response when previously we would have simply said, "Are you okay?"

We start worrying that every reaction or emotion from our team is somehow a reflection of something we have done. And in doing so, we can lose sight of some of the things that made us good colleagues, team members and people in the first place.

I don’t suggest you ignore the fact that leadership changes the relationship. It does. And it has to for valid reasons. But it is important to know that the basics still matter.

• Listen.

• Communicate.

• Ask questions.

• Check in.

• Have the conversation.

• Set clear expectations.

• Pay attention when something doesn't seem right.

And when you get something wrong, own it and work out what needs to happen next.

Just like Dad's savoury mince, the recipe might look a little different depending on who's cooking. Different people. Different circumstances. Different ingredients. But you don't need to reinvent the whole recipe every time. Sometimes the simplest things are the things that make the biggest difference.

So when things start feeling unnecessarily complicated, it is worth asking:

Am I doing the basics?