I work with leaders. My team helps individuals and organisations be at their best and most productive and creates enabling environments for transforming organisations into sustainable institutions.
During my work, I have been privileged to serve as an executive coach, mentor, and advocate to leaders and organisations. I do judge everything around me from a leadership perspective. While learning, reading, and engaging in practical activities have shaped my views, capacity, and influence, I have always been open to reflections that birth new insights and apply them to impact my clients and their organisations. One of the areas I warn leaders about is the menace of confirmation bias and the use of passers-by’s knowledge in making decisions by leaders.
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Let me use a true story to illustrate confirmation biases in the workplace. A few years ago, the chief executive officer of one of the large banks was fond of demanding his team to contribute objectively to move the bank forward. At the beginning of every meeting, he will introduce the critical decision subjects and state his position on them. Everyone will take turns to speak. It becomes a culture for everyone, including executive directors, general managers, and other participants, to begin their contributions by validating the position of the CEO. They always start their contributions by concurring with what the CEO has said with slight repetition. This became the norm at every meeting until a riot starter risked his career and credibility to change the norm.
In African organisations, leadership is more of a positional and age-orientated title. Our leadership orientation is based on a huge position and power quotient, and we see a slight disagreement with the leader’s position as disloyalty. People play it safe by following the trend or rhythm set by the tone and body language of the leader. People will always want to be on the leader’s side, even if they lead the whole team, organisation, or nation into oblivion. An average business owner or leader enjoys confirmation biases, which are either given unknowingly to them to massage their ego or to affirm them as infallible. I have affirmed that leaders are not the best brains in their teams; they are the first, no doubt, but not the best in every team’s sphere of knowledge and experience. In every team, no person is as intelligent as the whole team if they work collaboratively.
On this fateful day, Akin, the riot starter and an assistant general manager, changes the tune and tone of the meeting. He allowed all his twelve senior officers to speak, each taking turns to validate the CEO’s position before his radical comments that sent spines to the cords of everyone seated at the meeting. He said the bank is not progressing because everyone is giving the CEO a confirmation bias. Instead of expressing our views, having a robust conversation, and arriving at decisions that will move the bank forward, we play politics. From today, we should stop saying you agree with the CEO; please let’s make our comments independently and disagree if necessary. In disagreement, diverse opinions are born, and better solutions are harnessed to move the bank forward.
Everyone at the meeting thought Akin had either been offered another job or was willing to resign his appointment. To everyone’s surprise, the CEO applauded his audacity and expressed his dislike for senior people who were not bold enough to challenge his views. He encouraged people to follow in Akin’s footsteps and rewarded him with responsibilities. Akin later grew and became the CEO of one of the newly acquired banks within the same group.
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Before Akin’s radical comments and departure from the norms, the CEO enjoyed the messianic status accorded to him by the sycophancy of the team he surrounded himself with. He shifted from being a positional leader to a collaborative mentor, a catalytic improver with a new perspective and listening ears that see no harm in disagreement with his position but rather see value in the diversity of people and their contributions.
“In African organisations, leadership is more of a positional and age-orientated title. Our leadership orientation is based on a huge position and power quotient, and we see a slight disagreement with the leader’s position as disloyalty.”
One attribute of your team member you should be aware of and kill as quickly as possible is confirmation bias. A person giving you confirmation bias always agrees and tells you what you want to hear for their benefit. A way to destroy leaders is to emphasise their egos, portray them as someone with the ultimate knowledge, and constantly affirm their ideas’ correctness even when the followers have superior contrary views.
In my mentoring and coaching relationships with people, I am known as someone who can risk any incentive against giving a confirmation bias. I have people who have always wanted me to confirm their beliefs and decisions. Confirming what is not in the best interest of their organisation is saying yes to the emotion of one person against the welfare and the posterity of a large team represented by the organisation.
I coined the term passerby knowledge to reflect a lack of depth in leaders who are on the surface and have only cursory information but believe they know it all. No one knows it all in every field. The end of your knowledge is the beginning of another person’s exposure. Being a passerby is more encouraged when people are fast-tracked into leadership. No crime if you find yourself in a leadership position early. The crime is not to listen, read to gain knowledge, and yet act as if you are invincible to errors or mistakes.
Suppose you are in discussions with someone with passerby’s knowledge. In that case, they quickly take words from you even if you initiated the conversation. They want to show wisdom and speak to impress others but always need relevant depth. They throw terminology they need help understanding rather than listening to others to learn or be informed.
A passerby’s knowledge is easily exposed except when the leaders cannot be asked questions. In such a situation, people outside the organisation judge the entire team with the laxity of their leaders. For leaders to avert the menace of passerby’s syndrome, they must listen to learn not to give responses, have the humility to learn from their team members, and read at least some books or articles on the areas of their interests.
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Leaders with passerby experience always want and love the confirmation bias of others to make them feel in charge. These two have a devastating effect on leaders’ growth, the quality of decisions they make, and their ability to build or sustain momentum. Leaders should, therefore, be wary of those who confirm their biases, seek fresh insights, and, more importantly, have a beginner’s mindset to learn, grow, and earn more.
Babs Olugbemi FCCA, the Chief Vision Officer at Mentoras Leadership Limited and Founder of Positive Growth Africa. He can be reached on [email protected] or 07064176953 or on Twitter @Successbabs.
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