Many people in a leadership position believe that they need to know everything in order to lead properly and maintain control in their business or organization. This, however, may be exactly the wrong way to think about leadership, especially in a knowledge based world.
An alternative idea is that, in order to lead truly effectively, a leader needs to "lead from NOT knowing". This article explores this idea, and provides guidelines for a how a person can learn to lead in this way.
From the original article (PDF text)
September 2004
Leading from Not Knowing
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Leading from Not Knowing as a leader you may well have come across One person that I coach told me a story recently. His friend, “Bill”, ended up with a a paradox that is at once challenging and, in new boss. On the first day in her new role, some ways, illuminating. The paradox is that, the boss called “Bill” into her room and gave quite simply, leaders are expected (by him the new rules that he was to operate themselves and others) to know everything. under. She told him, in effect, that she knows Or, at least, everything related to the challenges everything that is going on in the organization, of the organization that they are leading. Of that he should respect that, and that he should course, being human, you know that you follow everything that she said to him. can’t possibly know everything, and you can’t possibly always have all the right answers for Bill, of course, questioned this. He dared to the challenges faced by your organization. suggest that, on occasion, maybe his boss didn’t know everything. She grudgingly This paradox leads us to consider the question acknowledged this, but then said, quite of leadership. It’s an old question, but one adamantly, “You never let anyone know that which seems to need continual revisiting in you don’t know something”. the face of rapid changes in the world. The response of this leader is not uncommon. So, the old question posed once again – What In a business world often filled with bravado, exactly is leadership? What, really, are leaders and the need to use “spin” in order to survive, expected to do? In this short article I want feeling that one must be seen to have all the to suggest an interesting answer to the paradox answers seems natural. Yet, if you look at – the idea of leading from NOT Knowing. what’s at stake for the survival of most organizations today, is this “natural” response “Shoulds” versus “Cans” good enough? By that I mean does it really have any evolutionary value in terms of helping If you get any group of leaders in a room and an organization to change and grow so as to ask them whether or not they have answers stay competitive? to all the big problems they face, they’ll say that they don’t. At the same time, many feel Consider for a moment how the world has that they should have answers to those changed in the last fifty years or so. It once problems. might have been possible for a leader to know
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Leading from Not Knowing
all that mattered in relation to his or her know how to respond in the face of a familiar business. Today, however, things are very situation. different. New scientific advances are happening every day, and each discovery However, where the future is likely to be very creates the potential for discontinuous change. different from the past, reliance on experience The Internet really is creating a revolution. – especially the experience of just one Today, working from home, one person can individual – can be a liability. To prepare for achieve what would have taken a small army the future, you need to be able to predict and millions of dollars just a generation ago. future scenarios based on a range of different knowledge sources. These sources are often With a laptop computer you can connect with so broad, and so complex, that it isn’t possible most sources of information in the world. for one individual to master them all. New ideas are immediately available, and value is captured by those who can use these To effectively make use of all these different ideas quickly and flexibly to offer a new product sources of information, a leader needs to draw or service. You can video-conference with on the experience and views of many different someone on the other side of the world just individuals to create a synthesis. Leadership using a free service, and for a little bit of money takes place, and the organization makes the you can improve the quality of those correct decisions. However, this doesn’t connections. I could go on, but you get the happen because the leader has all the picture. The rules have changed, and they answers. Rather, it happens because of the will continue to change. combination of knowledge from many sources. A side effect is that learning happens – for Which leads us to a fundamentally important the leader and for others. Through working question, or two. In this day and age, with with others who are expert in their own areas, the speed of change and the continual everyone involved in the process deepens development of new knowledge, can a leader their knowledge base. ever hope to know everything? More importantly, is there any real value in the leader There is, of course, an entirely different angle “knowing everything”? to this question as well. The issue of “filters”. Each of us only knows things that have come Can a Leader Know Everything? into our minds. We do not know things that have not yet been able to penetrate the mists Let’s address these questions in turn. Firstly, of our unconscious. And, it can be clearly can a leader hope to know everything? In an demonstrated that we filter out or distort environment where the future is going to be information through our senses all the time. very much the same as the past, it’s likely that What we think we see or hear really isn’t. a leader can know everything that matters. Like that dead body that you saw on the road He (or she) will have seen things before, and one night, the hairs standing up on your neck, having acted appropriately in the past will until you got close enough to realize that it was only a piece of an old tire.
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Leading from Not Knowing
It seems to me that one of the really important argue that not knowing is a better state for aspects of wisdom is to realize that one a leader than knowing. This does not mean doesn’t know anything. Each of us has a that a leader doesn‘t know anything, but it view, based on the information that we have does mean that the leader recognizes the been able to perceive. Of course, the limits of personal knowledge, and is prepared information may be incomplete, and there to use the intelligence and knowledge of may be totally different ways to interpret the others in a way that adds to everybody’s information that we have been able to understanding. perceive. Therefore, to be truly effective, it is important to be able to draw upon the Taking the idea of filters another step forward, perspectives and conclusions of others in of course, we get to explore an entirely different order to build a more complete understanding angle to this question as well. If it isn’t possible of a situation, and thereby to be able to act to know everything, or even to perceive more effectively. everything fully, then getting input and multiple viewpoints is going to be critical to any decision making process. If, however, a leader Should a Leader acts as though he has perfect vision and perfect understanding, the end result will be Know Everything? the withdrawal of support by those who could at least help to create greater depth and clarity This second question is probably more around any situation. profound than the first. People who work for modern organizations are very different from their counterparts a century ago. A hundred years ago, leaders did the thinking and workers implemented the action. Today’s workers are, by and large, knowledge workers. This means that their job involves learning, understanding problems, and solving those problems. Much of the “action” is done using machinery and technology. And, much of today’s productive output is in the form of documents – encapsulated knowledge.
If a leader tries to solve every problem himself, he is basically taking people’s jobs away from them. The end result is a demotivated team, and an overworked leader. So, one has to
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Leading from Not Knowing The Basis of Modern Leadership consequences. It means that, in order to be successful, modern leaders need to think If leadership in the modern organization can’t about bringing the best out of their people, come from knowing the answers to everything, so they can truly perform. This is not purely then what is the basis for leadership? In many an academic exercise. It is a rigorous search ways, the answer is a simple one. Every for tools and techniques that help people fully group of people needs some way of leverage their strengths, individually and in coordinating action. A way of acting in groups. concert. This is the function of leadership. At the most basic level, the leader of any This is the art of facilitation which, in itself, is organization needs to make sure that the a full time job. That doesn’t leave much time group being led has a clear focus and a clear for the leader to know the answers to all the goal. The leader’s role is to create focus and other questions that still need to be addressed. coherence. This shouldn’t matter, of course, because the leader will be acting in a way that ensures Secondly, the leader needs to make sure that the right questions are being addressed using the organization is asking good questions. the minds of the people brought together for By good questions, I mean questions which, that purpose. The leader will be “Leading when answered, will provide strategic from Not Knowing”. guidance for the organization. These questions are not easy, and the good ones frequently emerge from intense interaction Leader as Facilitator between many different people working for an organization. As a facilitator, what must a leader so? Clearly, there are many different types of Thirdly, the leader needs to ensure that the facilitation technique. I shall not go into those right people are brought together, and that here, but rather will focus on the essence of they work effectively together to generate what is required from a leader. good answers to the questions being asked today, and those that will be asked in future. Be Vulnerable All three of these roles of leadership require that a leader deeply understands people and From the position of being a leader, probably group process. To be truly effective, a leader the most powerful thing that one can do is must understand how people think, how they to be vulnerable. There is something about communicate, and how they can work vulnerability that communicates, not together most effectively so as to leverage weakness, but strength. And people respond the different knowledge and resources that to this strength. each person brings to a situation. Recently I was speaking to a successful young It’s a simple idea, but profound in it’s businessman who has been able to turn
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Leading from Not Knowing around an ailing company. Three years ago he took over a company that was Share the Problem; hemorrhaging money, and was about to State the Unknowns collapse. The turnaround began with the implementation of rigorous financial discipline A second element that a leader needs to in the company. Shortly after, the focus turned consider when leading from not knowing is to marketing and rethinking the focus of the to “share the problem”. This means that the company. leader, either alone or with help, ensures that critical problems of the organization come to At the same time, everybody’s energy was be named, and then shared. In this way, focused on maintaining relationships with key more brains get to be focused on solving the customers and leveraging the real strength problems. In the example above, this was of the company – the ability to identify one of the clear steps taken by the leader. customer needs and work flexibly to meet Once everyone knew the problem, and knew those needs faster, and with higher quality, that they were being asked to help solve it, than any other competitors. they stepped up to do so.
Despite all these efforts, and signs that the As part of sharing the problem, the leader company was headed in the right direction, needs to state what is NOT known. This is there were periods when there was no money. especially important today where most value Instead of hiding it, this leader stood in front is added by solving problems that others have of all the staff in the company, and told them not yet solved. By stating what is NOT known, about the situation. He shared the financial the leader focuses the energy of the position of the company. He shared his organization on finding answers to what, one passionate belief in the ability of this company would hope, are important questions. to prosper. He shared his fears about what could go wrong. And he shared that there was no cash to pay anybody this month, or Task the Team next month, but that it was his intent that they would get paid when the company came out of the hole. Thirdly, the leader must give the people in the organization the task of both identifying As a direct consequence of these actions, directions for solving problems and then of people in the company committed themselves coming up with the solutions to those to ensuring the survival of the company. And problems. If an organization is always waiting they succeeded. Along the way they also for the leader to give specific direction, and forged a culture where everybody gets specific solutions, then the leader becomes involved in thinking about the future, and the the bottleneck. The only way for an role of the leader is more one of “holding the organization to perform at the levels needed space” than of giving directions. in today’s competitive marketplace is for “parallel processing” to take place. This means
C H R I S L O N S D A L E & A S S O C I AT E S LT D .
Leading from Not Knowing that solutions are being created every day in And, you do need to know something. You every corner of an organization. This is a need to know how to lead. This knowledge process that a leader cannot control. Rather, is probably not something that you find in it is a situation where one puts some books, but books can help to the extent they guidelines in place, focuses the energy in a share the experience of those who have gone certain direction, and then lights the fuse. before. I would state that the true prerequisite When done well, this creates magic. to great leadership is a deep self knowledge. Because, this self knowledge can give you the courage and the clarity to accept who Communicate a Sense of Hope you are, while at the same time accepting others. And, when you add to this just a little Maybe more important than all the other bit of hope, you create the conditions for steps above is the simple step of creating others to serve in ways that will amaze. hope. Imagine for a moment that you were a sailor on one of the ships that brought Christopher Columbus to the new world. What’s next? You had been at sea for weeks, and you felt as sick as everyone else looked. You were We live in a complex world, where many going somewhere that nobody believed different perspectives are of value. In existed. And, in your mind, the only end was light of this, this article is intended to your own death. In that situation, what would share a particular viewpoint only. I stop you from leading a mutiny and killing the captain? Probably, just one word. Hope. would hope that you would have different ideas and perspectives, that The leader, above all, needs to keep faith that would help to extend the debate on a solution CAN BE FOUND. It is such hope the topic of “what is leadership”. that keeps a team of people focused and energized. Without such hope, especially in Your comments are valued. If you have the dark days, all will crumble. Often, it is comments or thoughts related to the just the steadfast belief of a leader in the topic in this article, please visit and vision and in the organization that pulls more post your thoughts into the comments than a rabbit out of a very old hat. And therein section on the website. We’ll either lies the mystery and the magic of leadership. post them on the web, or include them in future editions of our newsletter.
CONCLUSION To access other articles or information about this or related topics, please visit In conclusion, it’s maybe fair to say that a us at www.chrislonsdale.com. leader doesn’t need to know everything.
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Originally published 2004-09-21 · Legacy CMS article #6786