The Prepared Mind of a Leader: Eight Skills Leaders Use to Innovate, Make Decisions, and Solve Problems (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) by Bill Welter;Jean Egmon

Author:Bill Welter;Jean Egmon
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2007-09-21T23:23:00+00:00

• Fear of losing face

• Poor listening skills

• Fear of change

Time Pressure

The old saw, "We need it yesterday," does not suggest taking time to challenge things by asking questions like, "Do we need it at all?" "What is the `it' that we need, and is it really what we want?" "We may need it yesterday but will we need it tomorrow?" In other words, the pressure of time can box us in to becoming order takers and not critical thinkers.

Industrial Age Models of Authority

We say we are in the knowledge era, with flattened structures of formal authority and millions of knowledge workers essentially acting as their own bosses and as collaborators across teams. However, the reality in practice is that most of us tend to defer to and not challenge ideas or practices we perceive as coming from someone with more authority than us. We may complain and disagree, but often we either fear what might happen if we challenged the boss or we do not accept challenging as our responsibility.

Fear of Losing Face

Even if we are not afraid of losing our job if we stop the train of decision making and action and challenge those around us, often we are afraid to take the risk of opening our mouth and being perceived as wrong, as a squeaky wheel, as not adding value to the team. We remember from Abraham Maslow that most humans have needs for affiliation and for esteem. When we challenge others and create dissonance for them, we risk losing that affiliation or their esteem for us. This is very much akin to the risk of losing friends.

Poor Listening Skills

The Prepared Mind version of challenging is not about convincing or talking people into submission. But most of us, when we are calling something or someone into question, want to rush in with our version of what we think is right. Sometimes we even literally interrupt other people so we can make our point. People who are focused on their own way or getting their point across do not listen well for the truth in the other person's statement. This is difficult in personal relationships, and it is certainly difficult in work relationships, especially in highly internally competitive or low-trust cultures.

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