Great leaders make mistakes and know they don't have all the answers.
For decades, the laws of business leadership have viewed vulnerability
as weakness. Today, more and more leaders in a
variety of realms are realizing that this is simply a psychological
case of the king has no clothes on. Vulnerability doesn’t
weaken us as leaders, it makes us stronger. When we reveal
our struggles to others, their natural inclination is to want to
help. This vulnerability is difficult, but essential, to the modern
leader.
There is no point pretending to your children that you
never make mistakes. Soon enough, they grow old enough to
realize that you do and then you lose credibility, and a leader
without credibility has no one to lead but himself.
I remember once as a child getting in trouble and my
mother sending me to my room. I was to stay there until
my father came home. When Dad arrived home my mother
briefed him on what I had done, no doubt, and then sent him
to talk to me. When he came into my room, I was lying on
my bed and he sat down in my desk chair. He asked me how
I was and I replied, “Fine.” He asked me what was happening
in my life, and I said, “Nothing.” I was expecting him to
get mad and be angry with me, but he wasn’t. Then he told
me a story about a time in his life when he had done some-
thing pretty stupid. By telling me a story about how he once
messed up, he made himself vulnerable. That vulnerability
created a bond, a connection, an intimacy. When he was finished
with his story he said, “Now, Matthew, your mother
tells me you’ve done a stupid thing. You’re a smart kid. If you
keep doing things like that, what sort of a life will it lead to?
Build yourself a good life, and I’m here to help you
with that.”
My father never even mentioned what I had done to be
sent to my room, but by revealing a little about his own mistakes
and faults, he gave me permission to be human. And
we need that. As strange as it may seem, we need permission
to be human. Children need it more than anyone else. It
would be a tragedy to create a fear of failure in a child. Three
hundred as a batting average makes you among the best in
baseball, and I suspect the same is true in life. Great leaders
make a lot of mistakes but they admit them, learn from them,
and press on.
The other quality found in leaders who are secure in who
they are is that they don’t pretend to have all the answers. It
is a mistake to think that you always have to have the answers
for your children. Mostly because it stems from a pride
that is dangerous in and of itself, but also because it robs you
of one of your great opportunities as a parent—the opportunity
to teach your children how and where to find answers to
questions.
It’s okay to say “I don’t know!” But let’s be quick to follow
it up with “But let’s find out!”
As a child, I was taken to the library to investigate such
questions. Today I suppose it is just as easy to jump on
Google, do a quick search, and find the answer. Empowering
children to find answers is one of the most practical gifts we
can give them as parents, and one we only think to give them
after we admit we don’t have all the answers. Sure, you could
go off and find the answer and bring it back to them and continue
the all-knowing pretense. But you would be robbing
your child of a powerful life lesson.
Great leaders are not afraid to make mistakes, and they
are equally unafraid to say “I don’t know!”
Matthew Kelly
From Building Better Families
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