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Great Leadership Is Admitting What You Do Not Know and Thus Avoid Becoming A Victim

Great Leadership Is Admitting What You Do Not Know and Thus Avoid Becoming A Victim

Unfortunately, Elliot Aronson, a social psychologist, recognized that human beings “are not rational beings as much as rationalizing beings.” Possibly, this characteristic to rationalize may be part of the magic pill syndrome. This syndrome is that individuals want their fix whatever that is to their performance right now without effort, without pain, without expense so that their performance can reach the level of others.

Years ago I was introduced to something call the Law of Process by a close friend and mentor. He drew a quadrant and then labeled it as follows:

Upper left hand square – unconscious incompetence – I do not know what I do not know
Lower left hand square – conscious incompetence – I now know what I do not know
Lower right hand square – conscious competence – I know what I know
Upper right hand square – unconscious competence – I know what I know without thinking


Then he drew some arrows or what he called bridges connecting the squares:

Bridge of Discovery between unconscious incompetence and conscious competence
Bridge of Learning between conscious incompetence
Bridge of Practice or Spaced Repetition between conscious competence and unconscious competence
Bridge of Complacency between unconscious competence and unconscious incompetence

One of the best examples of leaders who demonstrated that he knew what he did not know was Henry Ford in his testimony before the U.S. Congress. He freely admitted that with a phone call he could connect with someone who had the answer to any question he was facing. Ford understood his own limitations and understood that there were a lot more smart people than he was. He knew how to leverage what he did not know and make a lot of money while doing it.

Unfortunately, the magic or know it all pill syndrome has affected many within the business community. These individuals truly live in the squares 1 and 2. They look to the Magic Pill Syndrome as the solution to what they do not know. They fail to understand that they must cross through each square using the bridges.

However, when we rationalize or justify our actions, we never work through the entire quadrant We stay where we are looking for the easy way out to improve our performance. And when success does not happen, we rationalize our failure and then become victims.

Great leaders are never victims. They understand that through hard work, leveraging what they know and what they do not know, they will realize the desired results of improved performance for themselves and those they lead.





Great Leadership Is Admitting What You Do Not Know and Thus Avoid Becoming A Victim - To learn more about this author, visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website.

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Dave Kurlan
Dave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website

Dianne Crampton
Dianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website

David Acheson
David Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns.  David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website

Linda Richardson
Linda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website


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Leanne Hoagland-Smith
(Visit Leanne's Website) Are your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/re d-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith is a Platinum author on EvanCarmichael.com
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