Reflections on leadership #1: I know nothing
15 years into my career, the last decade of which has mostly been in senior roles in consumer technology businesses, it might seem strange to start off my series of reflections on leadership by saying “I know nothing”. However, if I had to choose my most foundational learning it would be precisely this. Let me explain…
If you were to plot real or perceived knowledge against career tenure, many leaders believe, and act as if, it follows a straight line up and to the right. The end result is a military or victorian factory style of management where everyone in the team knows slightly less than their boss, to whom they defer and from whom they take direction, and atop sits an all knowing leader who by definition is best placed to have total control. Let’s call these leaders the “know it alls”.
But… In my experience the shape of the graph is more like an inverted U. At the start of your career you essentially know nothing, other than your general life experience (which should not be undervalued). As you develop workplace and functional skills your knowledge grows until, likely 5–10 years in, you are considered, and consider yourself a “functional expert”. Congratulations, you have now reached the pinnacle of your knowledge.
As you increasingly move into leadership roles you are by definition moving further away from the action, from the customer, from the front line. You de facto know less in almost every situation than those “beneath” you. Increasingly you are hired for, and succeed or fail based upon, your behaviours and values rather than for your specific knowledge. Your role becomes one of coaching, setting broad direction, ensuring your teams have the resources, skills and tools they need to succeed and establishing the systems and processes that give teams the broader context that you might have, but that they may lack, as well as often being a simple administrator — approving holidays and navigating the internal dynamics to remove roadblocks. In fact the right hand side of the graph may be even lower than the left, as senior (and by definition older) leaders are further removed from the very consumer behaviours and technologies that are increasingly driving modern businesses. Let’s call these leaders the “know nothings”.
“Know it all” leaders will hoard power, decision rights and information, powered by the fundamental belief that they always know better than those they lead. They will regularly obsess over decisions being made by their teams, often override those decisions, or worse still revisit historic decisions made by the team with a “how could you have made this decision” lens.
This approach to decision making is, in my experience and opinion, the most dangerous and damaging thing that a leader can do to an organisation:
- It destroys trust — the team no longer feels their leader trusts them and their capabilities
- It erodes confidence — the team members lose confidence in their leader, or even worse themselves
- It eliminates agency — the team doesn’t feel empowered to make decisions
- All of which together reduces agility — with decision making slowed down either by governance processes put in place by the leadership, or because teams invest disproportionate & unnecessary time to prepare “cases” for their decisions, in readiness for the expected assault
When things do go wrong, rather than coach, develop and advise their teams, or build systems to give them the wider context they need, “know it all leaders” will typically gravitate to blame a “lack of knowledge” on having the wrong people, seeking to hire in more knowledge.
“Know-nothing” leaders will recognise that in almost all situations they, by definition, know less than their teams about the right course of action. They will set broad directions and fundamental values that guide teams when making decisions. They will create high-trust environments which gives teams and their members a strong degree of self-confidence. They will prioritise empowerment giving teams a huge degree of agency. The outcome will (often) be extraordinary agility and adaptiveness, which will define the success of the organisation they lead.
Interestingly, “know-nothing” leaders often extend this approach even when they know that the team is making the wrong decision, assuming such decision is easily reversible or not material (99% of decisions), understanding that most-times the benefit of making a one-off decision with a say 20% better outcome, is offset by the say 30% worse outcome on future decisions for the reasons outlined above. The “know it all” leader will see this situation in exact reverse — pointing to the 20% improvement as evidence for why they were right to intervene and justifying the need for them to do so in the future. One approach delivers value in the short-term at the expense of the long term, the other vice versa.
The most frequently visited battle ground for “know it all” leaders is typically things they feel like they understand as a consumer — social, creative, CRM, internal comms. I wonder how many cumulative years are wasted across organisations debating the best wording, or the right colour/ composition. Curiously, this often diverts leaders attention away from the things that really do matter. Yet, how many (non-technical) leaders express an opinion on things like the underlying architecture or technical foundations, which will define an organisation for years to come.
But in the spirit of a “know nothing” who am I to give advice? This is what I have found works for me, but perhaps the truth of it is that everyone has to find their own path. That the true end state of “knowing nothing” is that there is no right and wrong, no good or bad, just an eternal quest of self-development.
A leader I once worked with challenged me on why I didn’t disagree with my teams more, why I didn’t override them and why I stood up for them in the face of criticism from the leader. I wear that with a badge of pride.
