For the decade of learning how to lead, one simplest thing I have struggled with is to keep my mouth shut in group discussions. Or at least knowing how to keep my points of view to myself before everyone else speaks.
Why does it even matter?
As a social animal, we inherit evolutionary instincts that were instrumental in our ancestors’ survival in their ancient tribes. Part of that very helpful sets of instincts is identifying the leaders or chains of commands in the community. The second part that follows, is to learn one important universal social code – how to build trust with them.
And speaking against a leader of a tribe in public is probably one of the easiest ways to invite distrust. Because for a tribe to survive in the wilderness, it’s vital for the community to share one voice and move in one direction. Even till this day, there are evidence suggesting leaders in the uncontacted tribes residing in the Amazon have the absolute authority on pretty much everything ruling the communities.
What that translates into, in today’s civilised teams however horizontally structured they might be, is that once a perceived leader shares an opinion in a group meeting, it’d take a monumental amount of courage for someone to speak up despite of all of their evolutionary instincts, against it.
The paradox of evolution, on the other hand, is that as we acquire perceived leadership positions, it seems increasingly harder to keep our mouths shut.
Why should we after all?
Our success in acquiring those positions seems to suggest to our animalistic brains that society values what we have to say, on everything and anything. And hey, if my points of view are valued by society, I am sure they would benefit my teammates even more 🙂 Before I knew it, all I could hear was the sound of my own voice.
As it turned out:
- There tended to be awkward silence after I announced my points of view upfront
- And nobody seemed to enjoy that
- It’s also way harder to invite differing or even opposing thoughts after
If we agree that one fundamental ingredient of a high functioning team is truth-seeking, a key enabler would be a culture that encourages and invites diverse points of view.
And that culture is hard to build.
Because truth-seeking is inherently uncomfortable at best and often anti-social. Because it means facts and truths over emotions and perceived seniority. And I have observed either one of the two prerequisites below as key enablers of a truth-seeking culture:
- Leaders who are capable of recognising and working against their evolutionary instincts to know when to shut up and when to offer their points of view
- EVERY single member of the team develops the astronomical courage and acquires the skills to speak up against their leaders
Except that prerequisite #2 almost never happens in practice 🙂
Learning when to shut up and when to offer a point of view has easily been one of the simplest yet hardest things for me, in the journey of learning how to lead. This post reminds me the importance of it, and invites any suggestions on what’s worked best for you in this journey.
2 responses to “One simple rule of leadership I struggle with”
This is such a good reminder!
I honestly wish I read this article one and a half years ago, I kept my low EQ in group discussions, and try to dig the truth, but truth is always hard to listen, and make people offensive, most of time, right is about when to tell not only about what to tell