Miss Nolfi would be proud.  You might remember her from my July 11 article, As Far As I Know.  She was my eighth grade Algebra teacher who hung the poster on her classroom wall: “Keep An Open Mind.  Something Might Drop In.”

It occurred to me a few days ago (something must have dropped in).  Keep an open mind.  This is good advice for anyone interested in effective leadership.   Sometimes we give it fancy names like shared leadership or participatory decision-making.  It seems to me that a basic requirement for shared or participatory leadership is my willingness to keep an open mind in order to receive new or more information from others.  This means I must be willing to accept that I don’t know everything, and more, that I might be wrong about some things.  What?  Me, wrong?        

“Get over yourself, Jeff.  You don’t know everything.  And some of what you think you know is flat out wrong.”  OK, for the sake of argument, I’ll accept this.  I might be wrong about some things (gasp), or most things (gasp, gasp).  So, what now?  Should I resign?  Should I hand over my responsibilities to someone who knows more than me?

Do I Need To Know Everything?

Or, might I consider that I don’t need to know everything?  Hmm.  How would that work?  Consider transformational leadership¹ .  I’ve described it elsewhere as change to make change² .

There is more than one way to describe transformational leadership.  For this conversation I want to emphasize that it is often associated with a commitment to a shared or participatory decision-making process.  This requires that I loosen my grip on the information and the processes in my organization. This means I cannot think of myself as the only source of information, or the only decision-maker. It also means I need to allow for some doubt about what I think I know. A bit of doubt is a good thing.  

In order to be an effective participant in a shared process I might need to re-evaluate how I think and behave.  This could be either terrifying or a huge relief, depending on how much I need to control my environment (people, information) to make me feel good.  If I tend to feel better when I am controlling the information or people around me, then shared leadership will terrify me ³ .  

Changing The Way I Think And Behave

If I conclude sensibly that I don’t know much and what I think I know could be wrong, then shared leadership comes as a huge relief.  I will welcome additional opinions and information from other participants.  It might take longer to complete our tasks, but the end result is better.  The only question remaining is whether or not I am willing to wait long enough for a higher quality result.  More change. Learning to wait.  Is transformational leadership more about me changing the way I think and behave, and less about others changing?  Could be.

Back to the original notion.  My willingness to keep an open mind (everything is open to question) is a tool for effective leadership.  It’s taken us awhile to realize this, of course.  Some of us once assumed that effective leadership comes in the form of a solitary person who is in control of all information and capable of commanding swift and clear decisions.  We sometimes called this a command and control leadership model, common among well-dressed, well-educated, tall, white men with loud voices and nice hair. 

Effective Group Outcomes

We’ve come a long way.  Fortunately, shared or participatory leadership is not a new idea.  Many of us have personal stories about how shared leadership is an effective approach. But we also acknowledge that shared leadership is hard to do because it requires personal change.  Remember: To be effective I must relax my grip on the information and the process.  But this opens the door for me to welcome others and depend on them to participate in the process.

Here’s the sum of it: Transformational leadership is more about group outcomes⁴ and less about who among us produces the winning answer.  This is more likely when I keep an open mind, starting with accepting that I might be wrong about some things.  This is more likely when I welcome lots of good questions from others before accepting any answer.  Transformational leadership keeps an open mind by asking lots of questions, and waiting for a few good answers. 

 
© Copyright by Jeffrey Y. Harlow, Ph.D (2009).

1. For a more traditional explanation of transformational leadership see Bass, Bernard M. and Riggio, Ronald E. (2006), Transformational Leadership. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, or Burns, James, M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper and Row.
2. See my May 9 article, Transformational Leadership: Change To Make Change
3. Or, it might drive me nuts because I am too impatient to wait for the group to make a decision.  In this case, I need to spend more time with Russell and slow down.  See my June 12 article, Illusion Of Ability.
4. Isn’t this another way of talking about the Body of Christ and congregational effectiveness?