Uncomfortably Uncertain
Leaders don’t need to have all of the answers.
We should be sure of the vision, confident of the values, and fixed on the end goal. But in the questions and speed bumps and hiccups along the way, there’s plenty of room for uncertainty. What there is no room for in an inflexible, my-way-or-the-highway, infallible decision maker’s fallible plan.
In Ozan Varol’s Think Like a Rocket Scientist (see the Top Ten Quotes post here), he addresses the uncertain vs. wrong leader:
When we utter those three dreaded words—I don’t know—our ego deflates, our mind opens, and our ears perk up. Admitting ignorance doesn’t mean remaining willfully oblivious to facts. Rather, it requires a conscious type of uncertainty where you become fully aware of what you don’t know in order to learn and grow.
Yes, this approach may illuminate things you don’t want to see. But it’s far better to be uncomfortably uncertain than comfortably wrong. In the end, it’s the confused apes—the connoisseurs of uncertainty—that transform the world.
Leaders don’t need to have all of the answers. But we do need to have the ability to utter I don’t know.
