So many leaders feel the need to be right to demonstrate competence or to feel like they have all the answers, but in most leadership positions this doesn’t fly anymore and leaders need to be wrong from time to time. The people you’re leading who are closer to the work will inherently know more about it than the leader, so the question is, can you learn? Can you change your mind? If listening is the willingness to have your mind changed, can you learn to listen and learn to be comfortable with being wrong?
Why Leaders Need to Be Wrong
00:20
Hey, thanks for being here for this episode where I have another confession to make. It’s been a couple of years and I think since I’ve had one of these, but this is a big one and it’s reminded me why leaders need to be wrong. I’m glad that you’re with us and we’re gonna get to a leadership learning opportunity here in a moment, but it’s gonna take a second to get there. I’m in Summit County, Colorado, and just got back from a run. I think last year on the show I mentioned I have what my wife and business partner and life partner and co-author Karen calls adult onset running.
01:03
I didn’t start running until about 10 years ago and I’m closer to half a century than any other big birthday. So with that background, I’m newer to running, and last fall I ran my first ultra-marathon a little over 32 miles. I love the trails, that’s the kind of running I do. This year I have started having some problems, I guess last year really started having some problems with blisters on my toes. I broke some toes and jammed some toes. It changed the shape and they start rubbing chafing, and getting a lot of blisters. So I have gone to every kind of blister solution that you could imagine. My favorite go-to for those of you out there who might have these issues is one of the cheapest things, diaper cream.
01:54
It is bombproof. I mean, you can go through rivers and run 20 miles. It’s still there. It doesn’t go anywhere. It’s a great solution, but it’s messy and not the most pleasant sensation. If you look into the articles and online running magazines and trail runners resources, in addition to all the other kinds of resources you might think of, there’s another one that is often recommended for blister prevention and that is toe socks. Toe socks, if you’re not familiar, they’re not the kind of socks that just have, you know, one big hole you put your foot in kind of like a mitten. Everything’s there. It’s more like a glove for your toes. There’s a little nub that each toe goes into independently. Some of my sisters have sworn by toe socks and it’s become a little bit of a joke in our family that they’ll tease me with them because I have an unnatural hatred of toe socks.
02:56
They give me the heebie-jeebies just looking at them. I’m like, nope, can’t do it. And even thinking about it now, they give me a shiver up my spine. It’s irrational. Can’t tell you where it comes from, but there you go. That’s my life. I hate toe socks or I did. So last week I was at my favorite store for such things, REI, and REI is not a sponsor. Wish they were, that would save me some money. REI it’s one of my favorite stores. And I was in there looking at socks, some the ones I’ve had have worn through and I was looking at the socks and there they were, these trail runners toe socks that were available. And you know, over the years there have been so many times where I have made a declaration that I don’t like something or I don’t do something, and a friend or a student or a participant in a program or someone will say, well, how do you know? And I always know I’m on the brink of learning something when somebody says, how do you know? Because typically the answer is, well, I don’t actually know. I don’t have that experience. And that voice came into my head as I stood there looking at the toe socks. Well, how do you know you don’t like them? Is it possible they could be a great blister prevention solution and you don’t have to fuss with diaper cream or any of that other junk?
04:28
Fine. So I grabbed one pair, I’ll try them out and I am recording this an hour or two after finishing a little over seven miles on some mountain trails and I was wrong. The toe socks are amazing.
04:54
So there I said it and I’m happy to say it. It may have taken me a lot longer to get there than I needed to. And how many extra blisters did I have that maybe I didn’t need to have? But I’m about to go out and get two or three more pairs just so I have them in rotation. Always have one clean. Okay, what’s the point of this story? It’s not about toe socks, it’s about learning. It’s about when was the last time you were wrong about something. When was the last time that somebody said, how do you know? And you learn something new and sometimes leaders need to be wrong to learn. From a leadership perspective, I know because I have been there. I have been that leader and I know so many, so many of our clients and managers, and leaders, and if you’re listening you might have the need to be right about things to demonstrate your competence, to feel like you have all the answers. I get it. I know where it comes from. When you’re an individual contributor, so much of your ability and recognition comes from being a technical master of your work, of having the answers of knowing how to solve the problems and do things.
06:06
But in a leadership position that doesn’t fly anymore, leaders need to be wrong and be okay with being wrong. The people who are closest to the work, they’re inherently going to know more about it than you do. Things continue to evolve and change and you’re not going to have all the answers. And it is the worst kind of hubris and pride and it’s just silly to think that you will. And listen, I am saying this as much to myself. I mean, you know, I have had an irrational hatred and proudly proclaimed from the rooftops my hatred of toe socks among other things. But I was wrong. They’re awesome. And so my question is, can you learn? Can you change your mind? I loved our episode two episodes back with Oscar Trimboli and his definition of listening, listening is the willingness to have your mind changed. So many of the comments he made in that episode have stuck with me.
07:08
But that one in particular, that definition of listening, am I willing to have my mind changed? What can I learn today as a leader? What are you going to learn this week? Who on your team is going to teach you something you didn’t know? We talk a lot about confidence and humility here at Let’s Grow Leaders and on Leadership Without Losing Your Soul. And it’s the confidence to be proud of and claim and know what you’re good at and the humility to know you don’t know everything there is to know and constantly be showing up with curiosity. As a leader what can you learn today? So in that spirit, I wanna invite you to send me an email. What’s something that you had a strongly held opinion or belief about and you’ve learned differently, you were wrong and now you’ve learned something better, something different, some other way of thinking, doing, believing, whatever it might be. Doesn’t have to be leadership or management related, if it is, even better. But I would love to collect some of your responses and even share some of them in a post at some point in the future. So, you can email me, [email protected], and let’s celebrate that leaders need to be wrong and recognize it because that means we’re learning, we’re growing. And if you’re learning and growing, you’re on the way to being the leader you’d want your boss to be.
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