One of the challenges that I write about in Good Boss, Bad Boss and that Jeff Pfeffer and I discuss in Hard Facts is that leaders walk a fine line between exuding confidence while simultaneously making decisions and updating their actions based on the best possible information. The best bosses, we argue, have what psychologist's call the attitude of wisdom: They act with confidence, while doubting what they know. I have written about this here before, and perhaps the best example is in this long post about the wisdom of former Intel CEO Andy Grove. There is a long quote from Andy in this post, and he demonstrates that attitude of wisdom with this great line, advising bosses:
Act on your temporary conviction as if it was a real conviction, and when your realize that you are wrong, correct course very quickly.
But perhaps Grove's most intriguing argument is that when you've made a decision you are not quite sure about, you as a boss are still smart to act confident, "to keep up your own spirits even though you well understand that you don't know what you are doing."
I talk about this balancing act a lot in Good Boss, Bad Boss and in the workshops I do with managers and executives and they usually immediately get it and tell me that this is their lot in life. But I have received push back over the years from some readers and some managers too who argue I am telling bosses to be less transparent. I agree with the sentiment, and their arguments make me squirm, but have argued back that, if you as a boss talk about uncertainty too much, the problem is it undermines both your legitimacy as well as the self-fulfilling prophecy. Thus, since you will be seen as less competent if you come across as wishy-washy, to keep your job and sustain your follower's faith, you need to act confident, probably more confident than you really feel.
On a related point, the lovely new book, by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, The Invisible Gorilla (you really should read it, it is scary and wonderful), describes a study done of two hypothetical weather forecasters, Anna and Betty. Anna predicted a 90% chance of rain for 4 days in a row. Betty predicted a 75% chance of rain 4 days in a row. The experimental subjects were told that it ended-up raining three of the four days, so Betty was an objectively perfect forecaster -- her probabilistic estimates were exactly on target . Yet still, nearly half of the subjects said that Anna was a better forecaster, because she was more confident in her predictions (even though Better was more accurate). Chabris and Simons also report related research on confidence; for example, doctors who consult articles and books before making a decision are seen as less competent than those who do not, which the authors take as another sign that we human-beings tend to reward and believe people who act confident, independently of whether that confidence is justified or not.
When I take all this into account, the best advice I can give bosses is to develop wisdom, to express confidence in their decisions (to sustain legitimacy and inspire people to action) and yet to keep doubting what they know and are doing in private and in backstage discussions with their trusted advisers. But my advice makes my own stomach turn a bit as, although it explains why our leaders are smart to bullshit us, and that it might even be for own good at times, it is still an argument for deception or at least exaggeration and less transparency.
I am thinking about this because, in a few days, I am going to be writing point 6 of my list over at HBR of 12 Things That Good Bosses Believe: "I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong."
In light of the complex forces here -- the weird pressures to act confident but to avoid falling prey to evils of overconfidence and the apparent tension between being completely honest and being seen as a competent boss -- I would be extremely interested to hear your advice, reactions, and examples of how a good boss navigates through these complex forces.
I agree with Kelley - very fascinating topic. Whenever I was harboring private doubts (as a unit manager at Waffle House), it helped me to talk about those - either with staff or friends. 'You're only as sick as your secrets.'
When my staff was able to help find solutions, I was happy to talk to them about my doubts. When I felt I could improve morale by showing unshakable confidence, I turned to fellow unit managers or friends to 'vent' my doubts and to put things into perspective.
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Posted by: Wally Bock | June 23, 2010 at 06:07 PM
I have on occasion prefaced decisions with something like, "I don't know which path is best, but I do know that either one of them beats where we are now, so I'm picking A and we'll test against (compare against, re-examine our options...) once we understand how much better A is than current state." It lets me be confident and at the same time be transparent and help my team understand that it's ok to move forward when I/they don't have all the answers.
Posted by: Liz | June 22, 2010 at 12:36 PM
"The most talented development teams I work with all have a finely tuned 'bullshit meter' and will quickly challenge any unsubstantiated confidence, especially on the part of 'management'."
I agree with the general tenants of this post. However the excerpt I list above from the comment Bob posted for chrisf rings very true to me.
I manage development employees. Earlier in my career I worked for a startup consulting firm at the height of the dot-com boom. When it went bust the CEO of our company regularily talked about the pipeline of contracts we were working on signing. He talked about how the economy had dipped but things were looking up and in some short time period like 4-6 weeks we would be getting lots of new business again. This was while we had a large number of consultants 'sitting on the bench' getting paid by the company and doing no work.
I had a lot of confidence in this CEO when I started (I was the second person hired at the firm and by this time we probably had 20).
His confidence in the company future and the economy when there was plenty of reason to think otherwise was not believable. I eventually left the company because I lost all my confidence in the wisdom of the CEO. The company survived but it lost a lot of good people at that time.
Confidence has to be believable. You cannot use confidence as a replacement for addressing people's real concerns in an honest way. If you do, that confidence quickly begins to look like incompetence.
Posted by: Apex | June 22, 2010 at 10:34 AM
Thanks to everyone for the great comments. here is another one from Chrisf that came via email, as there was some technical problem with posting it:
A cardinal rule in refereeing soccer matches is "Sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and always confident." Without that approach both the players and spectators are more likely to turn on the referee and the match can easily get out of hand.
The environment at my organization, where I manage a team of over a dozen knowledge workers, is a bit more complex though. If I have done my job right and hired talented, motivated people, then the notion that I hold the answers simply cannot apply. I may have the benefit of experience, but I see it as my key responsibility to leverage the collective wisdom of the team in a healthy and supportive environment, which includes effective processes.
I am routinely approached to help make key decisions, for example when the team is deadlocked. It is in such situations that the soccer referee rule applies and where I find Andy Grove's advice to be very apropos. Transparency exists in that the team is engaged with me, and I have actually had very good results in starting such discussions with "I don't know either, but let's figure it out", confident in my ability to arrive at an answer in collaboration.
Someone once explained that managing knowledge workers, especially software engineers, was fundamentally different from managing other types of teams (I wish I could find the article to cite). The most talented development teams I work with all have a finely tuned 'bullshit meter' and will quickly challenge any unsubstantiated confidence, especially on the part of 'management'. My recommendation is to tread carefully in this area, because once lost, it is near impossible to regain the trust of a team.
Posted by: Bob Sutton | June 22, 2010 at 09:49 AM
Having run a startup, I know this issue firsthand. There is a great balancing act between transparency and motivation. There is also a balancing act between humility and managing. I've had a couple examples where humility has been interpreted by some staff as an invitation to expect complete democracy. I had to remind them that my job is to gather all the information I can and then to make the best decisions possible based on available information.
Regarding your dilemma, things change fast in the world, especially in business and especially in startups. If the leader shared every micro-thought they had every day/every hour about the business going forward they would confuse the heck out of the staff, and probably themselves too. Instead they have to realize that there are many ups/downs and trust their long term plan until evidence suggests that plan won't work and then modify an execute again. Stay on course in your own mind and in your message to your team.
Posted by: Ron Gentile | June 22, 2010 at 08:59 AM
I was reading somewhere else about arguments regarding transparency and leadership and someone made an interesting point using Winston Churchill as their example.
They said that as PM, Churchill received top secret and confidential war reports on a daily basis. Some of those reports obviously boded well for England's prospects and others did not.
The writer argued that it would have been foolish for Churchill to share (and be totally transparent) regarding the nature of those reports with the British public since toward his goal of leading his people through the circumstances they found themselves in, part of his job as to keep up their moral.
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Posted by: Joseph Lira | June 21, 2010 at 09:26 AM
Wow, you post hit home with my work in Information Technology. In my experience, most end users want a definitive answer; not necessarily a correct one. Thus they tend to believe their 15 year old nephew who says the company's system sucks (even though he could not tell you the difference between an Enterprise system and a gaming console) over the administrator with ten years experince on the system, who will not give an answer without knowing the facts.
Posted by: Greg | June 21, 2010 at 08:49 AM
Bob, my concern regarding the confident boss relates to its impact on feedback loops. If the confident boss "appears" less willing to receive feedback, then confidence interferes. However if feedback loops are in place and trusted, I believe confidence will fit in your framework.
Its been my experience that too few bosses that have confidence have an effective and trusted feedback loop from which to leverage.
Posted by: Rodney Johnson | June 21, 2010 at 08:10 AM
Fascinating topic.
One notion I have is that confidence and transparency do not have to be at odds if a leader is also able to handle her own mistakes confidently in public. In other words (and to paraphrase one of your principles that I like best, Bob): lead as if you know you're right, and when you're wrong, lead as though you know how to learn from that, and know how to correct the course quickly and with minimal damage.
When I'm a team member, I don't need my boss to be right all the time, but I do need to believe that she is capable of, and willing to, become right. Transparency sends the message, "I am willing." Confidence sends the message, "I am able." I think good bosses are both.
Posted by: Kelley Eskridge | June 20, 2010 at 09:44 PM