Folklore contains numerous sayings underpinning the idea that leadership needs to be firm, decisive and above all, resolute.
The myth goes that changing your mind is a sign of weakness and it leads to vacillation when you and a team are working to a set of objectives.
However, how valid is that model?
As any structured leadership training will confirm, much work needs to be done by way of analysis prior to an important decision being made. Decisions that are made in haste are frequently repented at leisure. Yet once all the analysis has been completed, sometimes a leader needs to make a decision and do everything in their power to help ensure that it proves to be the correct one.
It is true that leaders who suffer from constant crises of confidence will be inclined to keep changing their mind and that encourages others around them to wonder whether there is a firm hand on the tiller.
There is though, a significant danger in taking the ‘strong determined leadership’ stereotype too far.
One of the key attributes of a successful leader is also the ability to recognise that, in spite of all attempts to prevent it happening, a wrong decision has been made. This can sometimes be painful to accept and perhaps result in some personal reputation damage but it is essential to have the courage to recognise that a bad decision has been made and to take steps to correct it with the minimum impact possible on whatever the enterprise is.
Leaders who lack this attribute can become guilty of fixation and egoism to the extent that they are incapable of recognizing that they are leading things in the wrong direction. That’s sometimes best more plainly described as pig-headedness.
Sometimes a bad decision cannot be corrected by injecting more resource or more energy in to make it right. It simply has to be either reversed or a radically different decision made to replace it.
Being able to critically self-evaluate your own decisions and identify those that are not working out is a prime characteristic of mature leadership.
The myth goes that changing your mind is a sign of weakness and it leads to vacillation when you and a team are working to a set of objectives.
However, how valid is that model?
As any structured leadership training will confirm, much work needs to be done by way of analysis prior to an important decision being made. Decisions that are made in haste are frequently repented at leisure. Yet once all the analysis has been completed, sometimes a leader needs to make a decision and do everything in their power to help ensure that it proves to be the correct one.
It is true that leaders who suffer from constant crises of confidence will be inclined to keep changing their mind and that encourages others around them to wonder whether there is a firm hand on the tiller.
There is though, a significant danger in taking the ‘strong determined leadership’ stereotype too far.
One of the key attributes of a successful leader is also the ability to recognise that, in spite of all attempts to prevent it happening, a wrong decision has been made. This can sometimes be painful to accept and perhaps result in some personal reputation damage but it is essential to have the courage to recognise that a bad decision has been made and to take steps to correct it with the minimum impact possible on whatever the enterprise is.
Leaders who lack this attribute can become guilty of fixation and egoism to the extent that they are incapable of recognizing that they are leading things in the wrong direction. That’s sometimes best more plainly described as pig-headedness.
Sometimes a bad decision cannot be corrected by injecting more resource or more energy in to make it right. It simply has to be either reversed or a radically different decision made to replace it.
Being able to critically self-evaluate your own decisions and identify those that are not working out is a prime characteristic of mature leadership.
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