The First Thing Leaders Should Do In All Situations…
It’s fun being right… right?
Maybe being “right” takes the form of winning a competition because you made the right moves or countermoves. Maybe it means winning a debate. Maybe it means simply having more knowledge on a particular topic.
Many leaders in businesses and organizations have made the right moves to get where they are at. After all, it’s not uncommon for leaders and managers to be “experts” in their respective disciplines. The problem with being right, however, is that it feeds our pride. And, the more times we are right, the more susceptible we are to becoming an arrogant leader, thinking we are always going to be right about everything related to the subject.
When things don’t go as expected, no problem… because we leaders know exactly why, and we know how to fix it (because we’re “experts,” remember? (But, yet, something went wrong… you can see the irony here.)
What Every Leader Should Do FIRST
Part of the responsibility of a leader is to seek first to understand. Many relational bridges have gone up in flames simply because one party “jumped the gun” and blamed another without seeking to first understand the situation.
You may know EXACTLY what happened… or, you just might THINK you know, and find out the hard way that you made generalizations and assumptions that were simply incorrect, leaving a wake of destruction.
When you seek first to understand, you ask questions. You get other opinions. You do more listening than talking. By doing so, you’ll often find that your “gut instinct” about something may just be the result of some bad pizza the night before.
“Seeking” Questions
So, the next time a situation arises that calls for your leadership to solve, ask these questions in an effort to seek first to understand:
- Is it possible that my initial feelings about how to handle this situation could be wrong?
- Do I have all the facts?
- Can the facts be confirmed by multiple sources?
- Have I sought out other expert advice on how to address the situation?
- Is the decision I make based on integrity and what is best in this situation? Or, is it just based on what is best for ME?
- What will the outcomes be of the decision that I make and have I prepared for them accordingly?
Cue Up Humility
Seeking to understand is an act of humility, and an admission that you don’t know everything.
When you seek first to understand, you will build respect with your co-workers and those you lead.
You’ll make fewer mistakes, because you have sought understanding before acting. It’s not always the easiest path, but it is the wiser one. And you will grow in wisdom as a leader the more you travel it… which will lead to you actually being truly right more often.
