The Power of Not Knowing

As leaders we often take on new challenges and step into new roles and in doing so we place ourselves under pressure to perform. We metaphorically stand at the base of a mountain, very much on the wrong side of a lot of work. Often we have new skills to learn, new people to lead, new markets to manage, new structures to shape, cultures to understand and important relationships to build. We very often start with zero knowledge of the environment in which we are stepping and how we handle this lack of knowledge can drastically affect our performance in role.

The issue I have found is that many leaders have been promoted due to the great work they have done in their previous roles and strongly identify their success in terms of their knowledge about the previous setting. Thrown into settings in which they have no knowledge has them doubting their capability, often hiding their insecurities and working their very hardest to cover up their perceived weakness. This is a recipe for disaster and left unattended can stifle rapid progression and seriously impact performance.

In creating an identity for ourselves as leaders, in this case “I am an all knowing leader”, we start to collect supporting evidence that this is why we are successful and over time this can create a powerful belief system that “if I don’t know everything then I am worthless as a leader.” If we are to succeed as a leader in new environments we need to get comfortable not knowing things and challenge the idea that we need to know everything to be worthwhile as a leader.

I leave you with a couple of questions to start that process:

1. What are the disadvantages of thinking that we “know everything” to leadership?
2. What are the benefits of “not knowing” to leadership?