Explicit Conviction

A leadership characteristic that is often encouraged is: strong opinions, loosely held.¹ In other words: act with conviction, but be prepared to change your mind when you get new evidence; don’t be scared to express a viewpoint, but expect to have to back it up with data when challenged. I know from experience that when teams work that way they get a lot done. But it’s interesting how often this ambition in practice manifests as: wishful thinking, seldom exposed. Or, even worse: loudest reckon wins.

We don’t cope well with leaders who express doubts or uncertainty. But I’m not sure it helps when leaders try to make us feel better by saying, “Everything is going to be amazing,” even though they have no idea. As Michael Lewis puts it in his seminal 2012 Vanity Fair profile of Barack Obama, presidents believe that “after you have made your decision, you need to feign total certainty about it. People being led do not want to think probabilistically.”

Fake certainty might be comforting in the short term but it also makes it more difficult to separate out those who don’t deserve our trust. Whenever somebody seems definite, I like to ask: “It sounds like you are 100% sure of that, is that right?” If they are honest the answer is nearly always, “Actually, no.” Likewise, we can test for tightly held opinions by asking somebody what evidence it would take to force them to change their mind.

When we examine and challenge our own beliefs, and encourage others we work with to do the same, it builds a culture that values critical thinking and continuous improvement. Rather than strong opinions and wishful thinking or, worse, loud reckons, the pithy summary of what we should aim for instead might be something like: explicit conviction, revised frequently.