Page 98 - Fearless Leadership

The Need to Be Right 85

With fearless leadership, you will have the tools to generate new resolu-
tions for challenging problems through bringing a larger perspective, col-
laborating, and innovating. This requires a willingness on your part to let
go of the need to be right and to expand your thinking. Unless this changes,
the long-term prospect of increasing your leadership effectiveness is dim.
The progression from how you think and what you believe to how you
behave is key to understanding how to optimize performance—yours and
others. Right now your automatic listening is mechanical and habitual. As
you begin to recognize how you filter and distort what you hear, you will
have access to a powerful method for intervening in this unconscious
process. You will be able to make purposeful choices and take decisive action
that significantly accelerates the outcome and results you want. The choice
before you at this point is: are you willing to turn insight into action?

LEADERSHIP EXPLORATION
Answer the following questions for yourself. Then ask a coworker to pro-
vide his or her assessment about you. As always, trust the perspective of
others above your own.

Do You Have the Need to Be Right?
1. Do you usually have the last word on a subject?
2. Do you interrupt and cut people off when they are talking?
3. Do you state your position repeatedly?
4. Do you dominate conversations or meetings by talking most of
the time?
5. Do you make up your mind before asking others for input?
6. Do you ask for input and destroy it when it doesn’t support
your beliefs?

What Judgments—Automatic Listening—Have You Formed about
People and Groups?
Identify an individual or group with whom you have challenges, and
answer the following questions:

1. What is my judgment about the individual and group?
2. What evidence have I collected?
3. What story have I made up?