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Sydney Finkelstein
It s graduation season, with many young people leaving the friendly confines of
university life to enter the mysterious world of work.
I ve never given a speech at a graduation but if I did I d talk about paradox,
a governing feature of life whose power sometimes takes years to fully
appreciate.
This is especially true for leadership, where ignoring paradox the
contradiction between two things that can both be true at the same time can
get you into deep trouble.
Consider self-confidence. The hallmark of any great leader is the ability to
convey to others that you know what s going on and that you re ready to take it
on. Follow me, and we ll make it work.
All you have to do is look at popular movies to see how self-confidence is such
a universal characteristic of effective leadership. James Bond, Indiana Jones,
and Catwoman show no fear or hesitation; instead there is certainty and
confidence. And when we see managers resembling these swashbucklers, we say,
there s someone who s going places .
If only.
Self-confidence run amok leads to mistakes and missed opportunities, whether
that is taking on big acquisitions that probably should never have been made
(Hewlett Packard s deal for Autonomy, that resulted in a $8.8bn write-down), to
spending too much time perfecting the old while ignoring the new (Microsoft
under former CEO Steve Ballmer missing the huge revenue-generation potential of
search, mobile and social media while fixating on incremental improvements in
Windows).
It s not that self-confidence is a bad thing, of course. It s essential. But so
are open-mindedness and flexibility.
(Credit: Alamy)
(Credit: Alamy)
Too much self-confidence means you start missing the warning signs that you
might be wrong. You miss these signs because, to you, they don t even exist.
The possibility that you could be wrong is a foreign concept.
The familiarity factor
Self-confidence might also yield better results when directed toward questions
or fields where you are truly expert. The corollary is even more important:
open-mindedness and flexibility are critical when you re playing a game that is
unfamiliar to you. Unfortunately, such nuances barely register for the Steve
Ballmers of the world.
I ve often observed in my work with companies that while expertise in one
domain usually does not transfer to other, unrelated areas, people often think
that it works that way. So the CEO fancies himself an expert in technology; the
professor thinks he can run the university better than the administrators; and
the star athlete uses his power to force general managers to bring on players
he thinks are the best.
Lest you think self-confidence is the only culprit, consider the opposite
humility. The humble but competent leader expects other people to contribute
ideas, embraces the role of coach or teacher on a team, and looks for
opportunities to deflect attention to others. Not only does humility leave room
for stars to shine, it often leads to better thought-out decisions by drawing
on the know-how of others.
All good except that excessive humility, like excessive self-confidence,
brings downsides. In many walks of life, there is no replacement for the killer
instinct. Competition is all about winning, and a touch of arrogance is not
such a bad thing. In a recent article in the New York Times about the NBA
superstar Stephen Curry, his coach describes him as humble and arrogant. You
can be both, and arguably, you need to be both.
The trick is to find the right times to exhibit either side of your leadership
repertoire. Helping your teammates score is good, but so is taking charge of
the game and dominating the scoring. Competition at the highest levels in
sports and in business makes being a one-trick pony a foolish strategy.
So where does this leave us? If you re a manager or an executive, make sure you
re not falling into the more is better trap. Just because self-confidence is
good, or humility is valuable, doesn t mean you want to find and reward people
who keep showing more of the same.
If you re earlier in your career and trying to figure out what to work on,
beware the focus on your strengths crowd. That advice makes sense only up to
a point, and that point is where management meets leadership. Work to become
more aware of the limits to your leadership style. Recognise that being humble
may score you points with your co-workers, but if you become typecast you ll
find it a lot harder to move up to a leadership position.
Great leaders embrace paradox. The sooner aspiring leaders understand that, the
better.