Business Book Club: The Dichotomy of Leadership 4/5

In this edition

1. Dichotomy #4: Defer to others but trust yourself
2. Extend your learning: Navigating leadership and followership dynamics

Dichotomy #4: Defer to Others but Trust Yourself

Willink and Babin assert that the best leaders can take advice as well as they give orders. Often, team members are better equipped than leaders to make the right decisions. But if you’re too reliant on others and lack confidence in your leadership, you may wrongly follow their lead when you know better.

Know When to Let Others Lead

To be radically accountable, base your plans on the best ideas, no matter who came up with them. To do this:?

• Humbly adopt plans from subordinates. Your team will see that you genuinely want to succeed and have their best interests at heart.?
• Always defer to your boss. Even if you think an order from above is pointless or unnecessary, execute it as if it were your idea. This will earn their trust and make them more likely to respect your opinion in the future—which will help the mission.

Know When to Fight for Your Ideas

On the other side of the dichotomy, you face different problems when you become too deferential to others’ plans. If you’re positive that following someone else’s plan will lead to disaster, you must fight for your ideas. If you cave to external pressure and accept a bad plan because others want you to, you’re not accepting radical accountability.

Similarly, encourage team members under you to fight for the ideas they believe in. Your team will likely hesitate to push back when you give them orders, so specifically instruct them to do so to find the best plan.

In The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Ronald A. Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky make the case that leaders should pay special attention to contrarian team members who regularly question leadership decisions. They say that most organizations silence or fire contrarians, as they’re often unpleasant to work with. However, if you instead encourage them to speak up, you can tap into an endless source of honest feedback.

A newsletter can't fit all our favorite insights from The Dichotomy of Leadership. Read our guide for a deeper dive into the book's key ideas.

Up Next

Next week, we’ll explore how to balance balancing forceful action and cautious risk management. To get a head-start, think about how you assess risk before making a decision.

Extend Your Learning: Navigating Leadership and Followership Dynamics

Willink and Babin assert that leaders balance trust in others with confidence in their ideas.?This exercise will help you reflect on your current approach to leadership and how you navigate the balance between leading and following.

1. Think of a time when you were in a leadership position. How did you approach decision-making in that role? Did you often defer to others’ opinions, or did you feel confident in asserting your ideas? How did your decisions impact the outcome of the project or task?
2. Now, recall a situation where you were not the leader but were part of a team. How did the leader make decisions? Did you feel empowered to share your ideas? If so, how were they received? Were there moments where you felt the leader should have adopted someone else's approach, including your own? Why?
3. How comfortable are you with taking advice or letting others lead when they have the better idea? Do you find it challenging to give up control or admit that others might have the best plan?
4. How do you handle directives from above that you might disagree with? Do you push back, or do you follow through as requested, even when you feel the decision might not be the best What are your motivations for handling it the way you do? Is it trust-building, respect for authority, or something else?
5. When was the last time you fought for your ideas despite opposition? What motivated you to do so, and what was the result?

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