Actually, No.: Rethinking the Rules of Leadership

By: Brittany Teepe

 

There is no shortage of opinions about what leaders should and shouldn’t do. Some advice is genuinely useful, some has been around so long that nobody remembers where it came from, and some sounds good until you actually have to deal with real people in a real workplace.

That’s exactly why we’re launching Actually, No., a new leadership blog series from The Center for Leadership Excellence. Throughout the series, we’ll take a closer look at common leadership assumptions, expectations, and “rules” and ask a simple question: Is this actually true? We’ll challenge familiar ideas about leadership, look at where they can go sideways, and explore what might be more useful instead.

First up is one of the most persistent expectations placed on anyone in a leadership role: great leaders always have the answers.

Myth #1 – Great Leaders Always Have the Answers

Picture this: Someone on your team comes to you with a problem. Before they’ve even finished explaining it, you already have a pretty good idea of what they should do. Maybe you’ve dealt with something similar before. Maybe you’ve been around long enough to recognize the pattern. Or maybe you’re just really good at solving problems.

So you give them the answer.

Problem solved.

Except… maybe not quite.

There’s a deeply ingrained expectation that leaders always have the answers. When someone has a question, the leader should have an answer. When there’s uncertainty, the leader should provide clarity. When something goes wrong, the leader should know how to fix it.

It makes sense on paper. After all, if you’re the person in charge, shouldn’t you know?

Actually, no.

Not all the time. And trying to make that expectation a reality can create some surprisingly unhelpful habits for both leaders and the people around them.

The Temptation to Solve Everything

Most leaders don’t wake up in the morning thinking, Today, I would like to answer every question anyone asks me.

It happens much more naturally than that.

Someone walks into your office. They have a problem. You have an idea. You share it. They leave with a solution.

It feels helpful because it is helpful, at least in that moment.

The trouble starts when that becomes the default.

If every difficult question gets handed to the person at the top, employees can gradually become less comfortable making decisions on their own. They may start looking for approval before taking action, bringing problems without potential solutions, or waiting for someone else to tell them what to do.

And the leader may not even realize it’s happening. From their perspective, they’re simply being available and helping their team.

Meanwhile, their calendar is filling up with meetings that could have been emails and decisions that probably didn’t need them in the first place.

Nobody wins.

Your Answer Isn’t Necessarily the Best Answer

One of the strange things about being a leader is that having more authority doesn’t automatically mean having more information.

The person who reports to you may know more about a particular customer. Someone else may understand a process you’ve never had to deal with. Another employee may have a completely different perspective because they’re experiencing the situation from a position you don’t occupy.

And sometimes, the person standing in front of you with the problem has already thought through three possible solutions before they ever walked into your office.

If you immediately provide your answer, you may never hear any of them.

That’s why a simple question like “What do you think we should do?” can be more useful than it sounds. You’re not avoiding the problem or passing the buck. You’re finding out what the person closest to the situation sees that you might not.

Maybe their idea is great.

Maybe it needs some work.

Maybe it’s completely off base.

All three outcomes give you something useful: information.

And more importantly, you give that person an opportunity to practice making decisions rather than simply practicing coming to you for them.

What Happens When Leaders Don’t Have All the Answers?

For many people in leadership positions, saying “I don’t know” can feel like admitting some sort of professional character flaw.

+ What if the team thinks I should know this?

+ What if they lose confidence in me?

+ What if someone else has a better answer?

Well, here’s the good news: someone else probably does have a better answer sometimes.

That’s not a leadership crisis. That’s how teams work.

You don’t need to know more than every person around you. Effective leadership means being able to recognize when you have the right information to make a decision and when you don’t.

Sometimes that means saying, “I’m not sure yet. Let’s get some more information.”

Sometimes it means asking someone else to weigh in because they know more about the situation.

And sometimes it means admitting that you simply don’t know.

That doesn’t make you less capable. In fact, being comfortable enough to acknowledge what you don’t know can make it much easier for other people to share what they know.

And that’s when things get interesting.

What Happens When Nobody Is Pretending to Know Everything?

People tend to talk more openly.

They ask better questions. They bring ideas forward before they’ve been polished into something perfect. They are more willing to say, “I see this differently,” or “Have we considered this?”

You also start getting something that is pretty valuable in any workplace: people who can think through problems without waiting for someone else to give them permission.

That’s not about leaving everyone on their own and hoping for the best. There will always be situations where a leader needs to make the call, provide direction, or step in.

The point is knowing when your involvement will actually improve the outcome, and when your involvement is simply making you the final stop for every decision.

There’s a big difference between being someone people can turn to and being someone they have to turn to.

The first is useful.

The second can become a bottleneck.

Maybe the Real Leadership Skill Is Knowing When Not to Answer

Being the person with the answer can feel good. It reinforces your expertise, demonstrates experience, and, let’s be honest, sometimes it’s satisfying to solve a problem in about thirty seconds that someone else has been wrestling with for two days.

But if the goal is to help the people around you become more capable, there are times when the thirty-second answer isn’t actually the best outcome.

Maybe you ask a few questions instead.

Maybe you let the person talk through their thinking.

Maybe you offer your perspective only after you’ve heard theirs.

Maybe you say, “Here’s what I’d consider,” rather than, “Here’s what you’re going to do.”

And occasionally, maybe you say, “I don’t know. What do you think?”

That doesn’t mean you aren’t doing your job.

It means you’re recognizing that your job isn’t to be the walking, talking answer key for everyone around you.

The most useful person in the room isn’t always the person who knows the most. Sometimes it’s the person who knows who needs to be heard, what information is missing, and when it’s worth letting someone else take the lead on a problem.

So, do great leaders have answers?

Absolutely.

They just don’t need to have all of them.

And perhaps more importantly, they don’t need everyone else to believe that they do.

Sometimes the best thing a leader can do is answer the question.

And sometimes the better move is to ask:

“What do YOU think?”