#7- Acknowledge what you do and don’t know.
One of the greatest obstacles is pride. I see and talk to a lot of executive directors who refuse to acknowledge what they don’t know. It’s okay to fake it in some industries in the world, but in an industry that deals with life and death every day, I’m not sure that’s a good philosophy to operate by. If we don’t know something, it’s okay to admit it. Find someone who has the answers. Some of the best leaders I’ve had the privilege to work with know very little but surround themselves with people who know a whole lot. They look awesome, because they can find an answer to any question. They simply ask someone they know who will have the answer they need. Being a leader doesn’t mean we need to be all-knowing about everything our organizations have to accomplish.
You have probably heard about the quadrants of knowledge. Two of the quadrants are unconscious incompetence and conscious incompetence. Here are their definitions:
• Unconscious Incompetence – We don’t know that we don’t know. That’s okay. That’s just generally being ignorant. Some people don’t like the word ignorant. They think it’s offensive. It’s okay to be ignorant. If you don’t know that you don’t know, pray that God will let you know that you don’t know.
• Conscious Incompetence – We know we don’t know, and it bothers us. That’s where we need to live. We need to ask someone else for the help we need, because we just don’t know. We want to move people on our team to that point, which requires delegation and developing.
Being a leader means acknowledging what we do know, doing that well, delegating and developing other people in our centers to help do those things we do know well, and then recognizing what we don’t know and finding other people who can help us get that done.
There are so many things that can paralyze us as leaders, our volunteers and team members, or forward movement in our organizations. The key is to move past those fears, lead with confidence, and network with others so we can find the answers we need when we need them. We must trust in ourselves and our team in order to achieve our mission.