Leadership Knowledge - Do You Know What You Know Not?

Sometimes leaders feel they must present an air of ultimate knowledge and infallibility or they will lose the respect of their subordinates. There is a line from the book of Proverbs which states “He who knows not and knows not he knows not: he is a fool – shun him.” This is exactly what people will do to leaders who either do not realize they don’t know, or try to disguise the fact.

In fact, a leader who adopts this attitude will become ineffective because others will quickly see through the charade. The result will be subordinates who lose respect for the leader and even begin to see him or her as a joke. People are much more likely to respect and want to follow a leader who admits to not knowing.

In “Charmides”, Socrates, in discussing the word temperance with Charmides and his cousin Critias, comes to the conclusion that temperance is “a man to know what he knows, and what he does not know.” There’s a critical point there. A leader must clearly understand not only what he or she knows, but also what he or she doesn’t know. Indeed a leader can’t know everything.

So what should a leader know? That depends on what he or she is leading. I used to tell new leaders that the only thing I expected them to know was…everything! My point being that it was incumbent upon them as leaders to try to learn as much as possible about those areas for which they were responsible.

Is that reasonable? Of course, as I said, no one can know everything; but, I do think it’s reasonable to expect a leader to strive to continually expand their knowledge base. Since I had a much wider area of responsibility than they did, I had to work even harder to set the example. I made it a point to get out of the office and work with the people in the various areas to learn more about what they were doing because I wasn’t an expert in everything. Doing this actually provided three benefits.

First, I learned something new about a part of my area of responsibility. Second, I experienced firsthand, the conditions my people worked in and where I might be able to improve their lives a little. When they asked for help, I was able to better understand what they were saying. Third, they saw that I was willing to learn and take the risk of looking a little foolish as I attempted to learn what they were experts at.

As the Proverb said, the leader is a fool who doesn’t understand that he or she knows not. I once heard a comment that ignorance is being in the state of not knowing. Everyone is ignorant in some areas. Stupidity, on the other hand, is when one is in the state of ignorance and fails to fix that state before taking action. Ignorance is acceptable, but stupidity will get a leader into trouble.

You don’t know everything, but you must know what you know not.

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