IN business leadership, there could be a danger of self-centred managers forming opinions, especially without sufficient data or diverse perspectives that could pose serious consequences to the organisation.
We have seen leaders (maybe even been those leaders ourselves) who let opinion outweigh facts and data.
The issue is that having an opinion feels like strength, until it turns down your team morale and culture.
For example, a saloon owner might form opinions without proper analysis as such they risk making poor decisions that can negatively impact the success of their business.
Confidence is often mistaken for clarity.
Leaders who speak with conviction are assumed to know what they are doing even when their decisions are based more on instinct than insight.
Overtime, unchecked authority morphs into just opinionated leadership, the kind that shuts down dialogue, resists challenge and avoids facts and data.
Loss of credibility
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When a leader shifts their stance without logic or transparent reasoning, teams take notice.
Inconsistent decision making shows up as unstable leadership and over time the team will lose trust in the leader’s judgement and capability to the steer the team in the right direction.
Every employee in an organisation wants to be led by a credible and trustworthy leader.
A trustworthy leader is one who is transparent, honest and consistent and delivers their promises.
However, when a leader deviates from the aforementioned they lose credibility.
For example, during meetings a leader who does not want particular issues that affect employees to be discussed will lose credibility.
A good leader who prioritises employees’ concerns will try hard to solve their problems, this will make such a leader to gain trust from the subordinates.
Moreover, when a leader does not consult and is inconsistent in decision making or changes opinions without clear reasoning such a leader will lose credibility.
Furthermore there are some leaders who believe they have a monopoly on ideas and opinion.
Sadly, when a subordinate proffers an idea they shoot it down.
This in turn demoralises employees and they will opt to keep their bright ideas to themselves even though such ideas are going to be helpful to the success of the organisation.
Resistance to innovation
Opinionated leaders often cling to what worked in the past, using it as a shield against change.
If a leader holds a strong position about what worked well in the past and still believes that it will work in the present time such a leader becomes a liability or a stumbling block to the success of the organisation.
On the other hand, the business environment is ever changing and this is caused by external business factors such as monetary policy, technological factors to mention just a few, this calls for a leader to be innovative and be a strategic thinker.
An effective leader must invest in learning and thorough research so that they become innovative and sharpen their strategic thinking and come up with cost-effective ways of running the business.
A leader who invests in knowledge and research becomes an asset to the organisation and will adapt to change with minimal difficulty.
Notably most of such organisations which resist innovation tend to lag behind and fail to command a foot print in the industry consequently their market share remains stagnant or lose most of the customers to innovative competitors.
Toxic work environment
When opinions dominate, dialogue disappears.
Team members stop sharing honest feedback, psychological safety fades and ideas get filtered to align with the leader’s narrative.
This is largely a working space which is punctuated with negativity and lack of trust.
This is not a conducive working environment because a lot of production time is spent arguing or squabbling as a result production time and productivity is negatively affected.
Toxic work environment has a lot of negatives and is hugely detrimental to the success of the organisation.
For example, some leaders believe that micromanagement, which is excessive control and inspection, is a proper way of managing, forgetting that too much control instills sense of fear in workers and erodes their confidence.
Moreover when a leader imposes their opinions without encouraging open discussion, they could create a culture of mistrust.
In such scenarios, bad ideas of a superior might be employed and that poses a danger to the success of the organisation.
Another factor which might cause a toxic working environment is bureaucracy — workers do not want to be subjected to too much control and excessive rules and regulations.
Too many rules and regulations hinder creativity and effectiveness and efficiency in employees.
Notably there is no room for creativity since the reporting structure is too long.
Employees could become hesitant to challenge bad ideas.
Mitigation
lFoster open discussions
Create a space where people can challenge ideas without fear of backlash. Ask for feedback — and mean it.
When your team knows their contributions matter, the will offer you insights money cannot buy.
This could be done through meetings attended by all employees.
There is a high possibility that the company might get quality ideas and strategise on how best to turn them into a useful way.
When an idea or an opinion of an employee is adopted such an employee would feel valued and recognised ultimately would feel being part of the organisation.
Open discussion might help the management to get to know the concerns and challenges of workers.
Through open discussion a company will get different ideas which will help in making informed decisions and boost productivity.
lEncourage data driven decision making
Management or superiors should entrust competent employees to analyse and interpret data to make a decision.
For example, analysing trends in sales trends at a boutique shop or furniture manufacturing company in making decisions rather than solely relying on opinions and views might contribute to the success of the organisation.
Practice humility
The best leaders are not afraid to say, “I was wrong.”
They are more focused on getting things right, than being right.
Humility invites collaboration and collaboration leads to greater outcomes.
Leadership is a responsibility not a right to be the loudest individual in the room.
Opinionated leadership might feel powerful in the moment, but over time, it erodes trust and stifles innovation.
The real strength lies in being humble, and asking the question: “What am I not seeing?”
- Innocent Hadebe is a United States based certified John Maxwell Leadership business coach and mentor. He runs the Innocent Leadership Group (ILG), an organisation inclined on capacitating upcoming entrepreneurs with the requisite skills to run their businesses.
