Leadership and Learning, a Catch 22

There has been an emerging line of interesting research on feedback and learning, which should be of interest to those interested in self-improvement, particularly when it comes to leadership. There is an inherent Catch 22 concerning leadership development; that is, as one becomes more successful and rises in one’s leadership role, the temptation is to develop a higher opinion of oneself - i.e., become less humble. Less humility generally blinds and causes one to be less teachable—less open to learning, especially when the information is contrary to the person’s perception of himself. But, the challenge is that the people skills in leadership become evermore important; one already has demonstrated the technical competence and mastery, and now what becomes important is the ability to lead people and groups (teams) of people. Yet, there is a diminishing return on the effort (and pain) to further improve our leadership—our ability to positively influence people. At “higher altitudes” of leadership the attributes that differentiate good leadership become more finely tuned so to speak - more subtle, yet critical for effective performance as a leader, and the effort to discover them and the pain of confronting them more difficult. One must learn some painful things about oneself, but on the other hand, one is also likely to be less open to that kind of feedback.

Research by Dr. Ayelet Fishbach (University of Chicago B. School) and Dr. Stacy Finkelstein (Columbia’s School of Public Health) supports the notion that when we are novices it is positive feedback that we need to keep learning, encouragement for what we doing right, but as we become good and more expert at what we do, it is negative feedback, correction and criticism, that is most “efficient” for our continued improvement (think of being coached in a sport). Yet, as noted above, it is the negative feedback that is most difficult for a successful upper management level person to swallow.

The lesson: to become very good and achieve mastery and expertise in leadership, the attribute of humility becomes increasingly important, enabling curiosity about our effect on others and progressive learning when it is tough to hear. The book Denial studies the Managements of well known companies that refused to hear bad news (and fell), and Marshall Goldsmith’s book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There deals with executives that have a hard time hearing the bad news about their habits, but must to grow.