Some Bosses Live In Fools' Paradise.

I have written an article which lists 12 beliefs that the good leaders believe in. I did not make specific explanations for these beliefs, but I promised to give answers in a series of subsequent articles. Therefore, this article will explain the first idea: "what is useful to me, and my understanding is flawed and imperfect."

　　 Leader People often lack self-knowledge, which is one of the reasons leading to the dysfunction of organization. They do not have the ability to influence their employees and can not apply the work methods that seem to be useful to them. But are these really their own mistakes? In recent years, in order to write the book Good Boss, Bad Boss, I have been engaged in related research, and I have learned some ideas from the authentic facts, dangerous half truths and all kinds of nonsense (Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, andTotal andTotal) which I co authored with Geoff Jeff (Pfeffer Pfeffer), and gradually realized why it is so difficult to lead a team. This article is not an academic thesis, so I can not conduct a comprehensive argument. But I will introduce three of the most powerful forces, which are hidden in the deepest part of human nature, collude with each other, and make leaders dull and incompetent.

1. leaders, like ordinary people, will deceive themselves. Humans are often not good at judging their own behavior and achievements. We will become the victim of "self overestimation bias", that is, we think we are "better than others", and once we find any contrary evidence, we will be out of conflict and unwilling to admit it. For example, in a study of drivers, 90% of respondents said their driving skills were "above average". For example, the US College Board conducted a survey of nearly 1 million senior high school graduating students. 70% of the respondents claimed that they had "superior" leadership skills, while those who considered themselves to be in the "middle and low class" level only accounted for 2%., but even worse, according to a study by professor David (David Dunning) and colleagues of Cornell University (Cornell), those who were most opinionated were the most incompetent. At this point, leaders should not be free from vulgarity. In fact, for leaders' strengths, weaknesses and quirks, their subordinates, peers, superiors and clients are always more thorough than themselves. This conclusion is also reflected in a study conducted by naval officers: which officers can get promoted as early as possible, and the prediction accuracy of peer assessment is quite high, while self assessment is not. Do you think you are the rare wise person in leaders who can treat yourself objectively like others? Let's be sober: most people are convinced that self-assessment is more accurate than peer assessment. Unfortunately, this is just another form of self inflating.

2. leaders easily overlook subordinates. When a person is pushed into the altar of power, his subordinates will pay close attention to any slight change in his behavior or mood. But this concern can not be equally rewarded. On the contrary, leaders obviously ignore their subordinates' behavior, care only for their own needs and aspirations, and care about their direct superiors how to say and how to do it. I once referred this kind of subordinates to the phenomenon that their superiors and superiors were indifferent to their subordinates. As Susan Fiske, a psychologist at Princeton University (Princeton), found in her workplace Research (published in the Journal of American psychologist), "the secretary knows more about her boss than the boss does for the Secretary, and so does the graduate student and the tutor. The former knows more about the latter than Susan." Fiske points out that this tendency is due to the fact that humans, like their close relatives of primates, "pay attention to those who are decisive in their own outcome." In order to predict or even affect events that are about to happen to themselves, people will collect relevant information from the authorities.

3. leaders are out of touch with reality. As I have reported with Geoff and Pfeffer in the "hard facts", a lot of studies have proved that people often "get angry with the messenger". {page_break}

Although unfortunate events are not the fault of the messenger, they are always regarded as scapegoats and become the object of people's negative emotions. The result is the "silent effect": subordinates with strong survival instincts are downplaying the bad news, making it sound less scary, or simply keeping the boss in the dark. Therefore, at the level of numerous organization The higher the leader's position is, the better news he hears. One of the most troubling examples is the Nobel physics prize winner, Richard Feynman, from his investigation of the 1986 Challenger space shuttle bombing. He said he had asked a team of engineers to estimate the probability of the main engine failure of the space shuttle, and the estimate they gave was between 1/200 and 1/300. But when he asked the Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to estimate the failure rate, the answer was 1/100000. Feynman, which fully shows how the manager is divorced from reality. He thinks this is a common problem of the whole NASA.

Just think about these three tendencies, and you will see how easy it is to be a bad leader. At the same time, you have unwittingly peek at one of the keys to effective leadership. A good leader (in my view, they should be leaders who lead their team to achieve brilliant results while showing great benevolence) is a sign that they can soberly recognize these dangers. They know that subordinates will take their words and actions into consideration, and then analyze and respond. Moreover, they also make real efforts to interpret their subordinates' facial expressions, pay attention to their behaviors, and constantly make adjustments so as to help their subordinates to think independently and express their opinions without reservation.

I used to talk to IDEO. Chairman David, founder of David Kelley, has studied and observed for many years, and has worked with him. I am very impressed by how well he knows how great he will be in front of his employees. Although no one would accuse him of being aggressive and arrogant, he realized that because he was the boss, not only that, he was also a well-known design thinker and industry leader, so he would probably attract too much attention as long as he appeared in public. Even if he stays there and does nothing, it will make employees feel depressed and affect their work effect.

I found that David took a very clever approach to counteract this effect. Whether attending brainstorming sessions, client meetings or any work related meetings, he would sit at the front of the conference room at the very beginning, just as everyone expected. But when he finished the introductory remarks (introducing the participants, setting the theme and objectives of the meeting), he would let others speak and chair the meeting, and he would sit aside. If there is a cold or awkward situation, he will intervene again, perhaps a small story or a joke, but if he is sure that the meeting is going well, he will go to the back of the conference room and listen quietly. Usually, before the meeting was over, he slipped out of the room and left without saying goodbye.

Of course, David Kelly's departure is not because he enjoys greater privileges, but because he wants the conference to be as productive as possible. What he excels is that he pays close attention to the environment he creates, and how his speech, behavior and facial expression affect the meeting, so that he can make constant adjustments so as to form a good interaction between the participants and not cause unnecessary distractions because of his presence.

This example is simple but very vivid. In my opinion, generally speaking, the best leaders know that they often have blind spots in their understanding of themselves, colleagues and organizational problems, but they will overcome this weakness through unremitting efforts.

I really want to know what you think of this problem. Have you witnessed what leaders have done to counter these powerful forces and how their emotions and behaviors affect employee performance and happiness? What signs indicate that leaders have a clear understanding of reality? Or on the contrary, they still dream of dreaming in their own virtual mirage. {page_break}