when it comes to leadership this is a trap that you can fall into especially
if you're a very successful leader if you have a great track record and you've
you've achieved your goal and you're in charge of a big organization that you
can end up surrounding yourself with yes-man because let's face it we all
like to be told that we're correct right very few people like to be surrounded by
people to say no no no no no no that's wrong
you know we all have a tendency to want to be reassured that we're on the right
track and that we're smart and that we're good-looking
you know we want it we want to hear nice things and but the problem is is that
when you're a leader you can fall into a situation where you have groupthink or
where people you're people who are very smart and especially skilled in certain
areas know better but they're afraid to tell you and this is especially true if
you if you're if you demonstrate qualities of being vindictive if you
penalize people for speaking out or having a dissenting view if you if you
come down on them because you're you're think that it's that's causing an
efficiencies or slowing you down then people really clam up and this is a very
very dangerous trap for a leader to fall into and and so we trained to avoid that
and I think it's extremely important and and it really is incumbent upon the
leader themselves because this is not gonna happen naturally you know if you
if the leader exhibits this behavior were they when they come down or
penalize people for for having contrary views then very quickly they're gonna
they're gonna be quite especially if you start firing him and showing them the
door and then the other people are going to get the message and and the danger
there is that you could blunder into you know no matter how smart you are and how
well you know what you're doing you're gonna make a mistake at some point and
if there's nobody there to tell you that feels confident in telling you hey just
second boss maybe we should rethink this then then that's that's extremely
dangerous and they when we did our leadership
training for for space flight the example I'll give you was that I was a
leader one day we're out in the deserts of Utah and we had to find a source of
water we're running out of water in the middle of the summer in Utah and that's
that's very dangerous so we had a map and we knew where there was a source of
water and we're following this map and we're using compasses and we're trying
to make sure that we're going in the right direction using the landmarks and
and and our map and our we didn't have a GPS that was not that was not part of
the exercise we had to do it the old-fashioned way I looked at it I
analyzed it I looked at the map and I said okay I think we're that mountain
over there that's the one that leads us to the water but here's what I want you
to do I turn to the rest of the team that was in charge of that day and I
said I want every single one of you to tell me why that is the wrong mountain
okay prove to me that I'm wrong that that I picked the wrong one and and and
if one of you can do that maybe you might save us all so turn that that was
the right mountain I was kind of happy about that but the point was I empowered
my team to tell me I was wrong and we got to that mountain and behind it there
was the water we all lived to tell the tale it was great but what if it wasn't
the right mountain and what if the last guy that told me I was wrong
I sent packing you know or or insulted them or you know belittled them shame
them what would but what do you think how likely would it be that I remember
that team would've said I don't think that's the right mountain and and saved
all of us I think the odds would be very very small so that's a really really
important lesson for a leader but it has to you have to force yourself to do it
because it's not really in our nature as humans to ask people to tell us that
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