Leadership and Intellectual Humility

We need to remind ourselves often that we don’t know everything. The Dunning Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that states that when you lack knowledge or expertise, you’re not in a position to realize that you lack knowledge and expertise. It’s not that we are in denial of our errors. It’s that they are simply invisible to us.

We must learn to listen and consider other people’s opinions, specially if it differs from ours. From a stand of empathy and tolerance, we need to be intellectually humble to listen and try to understand others and their opinions.

From a leadership point of view, a great leader doesn’t try to be the smartest person in the room. She seeks for the best people she can get for her team, specially in fields that are outside of her own circle of competence. The great leader knows that she has blind spots, and that she may not be aware of them when she must make a decision. So she hears what her team has to say and makes the best decision with the available information.

The BBC has this great reel about intellectual humility.