More and more, I am assured that as a manager, I don’t need to know it all – or even act like I know it all. In fact, it would be pretty crazy in a world so complex and with such a rich and constant flow of information to entertain such a notion.
In management, you do need to act with confidence. Part of your confidence is about the people you work with and their capability to partner with you to make decisions and take action. Part of it is in your ability to listen, ask good questions, and gather information and ideas. And part of it is assurance to act with authority based on your best ideas and information.
Even then, you will make mistakes. And this can be the worst time to “know it all”. This is the point where you take in concerns or critiques, or the outcome of decisions gone bad, and figure out what to do next. This is the time when you need to be most flexible to re-think and re-assess, not with diminished confidence but with full confidence that you can figure out the way forward.
I’m relieved that I don’t need to know it all, and I see it as part of my mature wisdom that I finally get why that’s not possible or even desirable.
If your nonprofit needs an interim executive director, please get in touch with Interim Executive Network today.
This “Management Minute” was written by author Barbara Laur when she was interim executive at a national association. Barbara is an experienced interim executive and a founding member of the IENetwork.
