CHAPTER 1
THE DANGERS AND REWARDS OF BEING BLIND
Successful leaders balance two conflicting needs.
The first is to act with a confidence in their abilities and faith in their vision for their organizations. This allows them to pursue ambitious goals and push forward despite obstacles that would intimidate if not overwhelm most people. Consider the example of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who developed an online retail business that was revolutionary and often misunderstood, particularly by those in the financial community. Bezos persevered through years of losses before Amazon became what it is todayāa rapidly growing company that dominates online retailing and threatens brick-and-mortar giants such as Wal-Mart. While Bezosās success is due to a number of factors, it is clear that a less confident, and perhaps more pragmatic, leader would not have envisioned or achieved what Bezos has done. He withstood constant disparagement, at least from Wall Street, because of his firmās narrow profit margins, erratic earnings, and massive investments in long-term growth initiatives. A fellow entrepreneur, when asked what made Bezos unique, noted that his most notable trait was his staying power and ability to withstand āthe beatings.ā1
Leaders with an overextended faith in themselves and what they can achieve stand in contrast to those who lack confidence.2 I recently met with a leader looking to address gaps in his organizationās structure and culture. I asked during our initial meeting how he viewed his leadership team. He said that his company had grown a great deal over the past decade and was now a $5 billion firm. His team had performed superbly in achieving that milestone. However, he felt that many of his team members lacked the confidence needed to push the firm forward to its next level of growth. In essence, he believed that they had reached the limit of what they felt was possible, and were satisfied with the current scale and scope of the business. Keeping pace with inflation was their unspoken goal. He concluded that they had, psychologically, hit a wall, and his only option was to bring in new team members who were not hindered by such limiting beliefs.
Confidence has another benefit. Studies have shown that people are more likely to follow those who are self-assured, outspoken, and driven. In essence, people follow those who are sure of their own abilities and willing to exert influence over others. One psychological study, for example, put managers into self-managing teams and then gave the teams a task to perform. The researchers were interested in who would emerge as leaders in these groups. The findings indicated that group members who were more narcissistic, and by definition more confident in themselves and sure of their own point of view, became the leaders in those groups. In addition, they were seen by other group members as being more qualified to lead because of their confident demeanor and drive to influence the groupās outcomes.3
We sometimes follow others simply because they are more confident than ourselves. I experienced this in a setting far removed from a corporate office. I was hiking Mount Kilimanjaro with a group of ten people. Summit day began at 3:00 AM on the route we were taking, and I was nervous that I might not make the final push to the top. I decided to walk directly behind the strongest and most experienced individual in our group. He had climbed a number of tough mountains, and Kilimanjaro was relatively easy for him. I recall thinking that he was going to make the summit, and I would benefit by psychologically drafting behind him. I didnāt say anything to him but followed him, one step after another in the dark and cold, until we reached the peak soon after sunrise. The next day, on our way back down the mountain, I told another climber in our group what I had done. He said he understood my thinking because he had done the same in following me up the mountaināusing me as his source of confidence on the way to the top.
The second need for leaders is to be aware of their own limitations and avoid the hazards that come with overconfidence and excessive optimism. The classic case of this need is found in entrepreneurs, who are more likely than others to make overly optimistic projections of their chances for success, overvalue their own capabilities, and neglect to adequately plan for potential problems.4 Optimism, of course, is both a strength and liability, propelling a leader forward but potentially blinding him or her to the realities of what could go wrong and what is needed to be successful. In contrast, savvy leaders know that they are operating, at times, with only partial information about what is unfolding in their firms and the markets in which they compete. Such gaps are even more likely as organizations grow in complexity and face changes in their markets that are difficult for any leader to anticipate. Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel, underscored this need to be aware of oneās own limitations in leading a company:
Leaders thus need to be supremely confident and, at the same time, see themselves and their situations accurately. Bob Sutton, a management professor, suggests that the best leaders hold the following belief: āI strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.ā6 He views the ability to balance self-confidence with self-doubt as a hallmark of the best leaders.
This balancing act is complex, as confidence and doubt are often adversaries, each seeking to defeat the other. Moreover, the right balance between confidence and doubt varies within each individual and even across situations. Psychologists, however, have found there are benefits to being slightly more confident than one should be. In other words, it helps to believe that you are better than you are and to be more optimistic about your business than an objective analysis would suggest. An optimal margin of illusion occurs when individuals have a small, positive distortion about themselves. This results in an advantage over those who are more realistic.7 A positive bias is useful because it increases an individualās motivation to move forward in risky situations and persevere in difficult situations. Positive self-belief evokes behaviors in an individual and in those around him or her that can result in successful outcomes. In contrast, too much self-doubt can erode a leaderās confidence to the point that he or she is less effective. Consider the leader of a consumer products company who was suffering through several resignations on his team and related complaints about his leadership style. He saw the turnover of staff and low morale within the group as a personal shortcoming and agonized over what he saw as his own responsibility for the departures. His anxiety began to affect his way of managing his team. In particular, during meetings he would apologize at length to his team about the problems that were evident in the organization. At a time when people wanted to be reassured, his uncertainty made those in his group think he was overwhelmed by the challenges he faced. His team members became even more anxious in a situation where they wanted to feel more confident about his ability to deal with the problems they faced.
The role played by blindspots is to mediate between the poles of self-confidence and self-doubt. A leader with too many blindspots can be overconfident, even blindly arrogant, and exposed to a range of risks. In contrast, a leader with too few blindspots may be too realistic and overwhelmed by the very real obstacles ahead. Some would argue that having fewer blindspots should result in more confidence because the leader knows that he or she is viewing the world accurately and thus can be more self-assured moving forward. This is the leader who spends a great deal of time testing and probing for weakness in a product launch plan. After exploring various weaknesses in the plan, the leader is confident that it will succeed. The problem is that awareness of weaknesses and threats, if not properly managed, can easily evolve into self-doubtāwhich then erodes oneās ability to lead. To be clear, the premise of this book is that awareness, all things being equal, is beneficial. But this is not to suggest that more is always better. In other words, not knowing what you donāt know can hurt you if you fail to see and act on your vulnerabilities. However, knowing what you donāt know can also hurt you if it erodes your confidence and ability to a...
