Catalyst is a Christian Leadership Conference held every year in Atlanta, GA. Bryan College has sent students for a number of years. I attended my Junior and Senior years of college, and returned this year as a chaperone/alum. 13,000 people gathered for three days of leadership training, and lots of fun along the way. Here are some notes from a talk by one of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell, on the necessity of humility in leadership.
Gladwell is first foremost a storyteller. In his writings for periodicals and books, he weaves together seemingly disconnected stories, finding overlooked, and underappreciated, correlations. He draws lessons and insights from these stories, providing relevant lessons for the challenges of today.
This address began with a story from the Civil War, specifically the Battle of Chancellorsville.
Abraham Lincoln had recently replaced the ineffective General McClellan with Thomas Hooker, a young, arrogant general of the Union Army. Knowing that Lee was holed up nearby, Hooker commissioned a troop of spies to find out what they could about Lee’s position. Hooker’s intelligence was unrivaled: He broke Lee’s code, and regularly intercepted messages. It was through this network of information gathering that Hooker was able to know Lee’s position, on an almost daily basis. Using this information, Hooker devised a plan to trap Lee.
Outnumbering him at least 2 to 1, and confident in his knowledge of Lee’s whereabouts, Hooker was convinced he couldn’t lose. “God almighty could not prevent us from victory,” he reportedly said.
He was wrong. Secure in his vast amount of information, he refused to listen when aids came to him telling of Lee’s maneuvering. Undaunted, he continued to prepare for battle, and refused to let anyone else speak to him—he set his plan, and he knew best. Hooker was so sure that Lee would retreat to Richmond that his forces were completely overwhelmed when Lee instead surprised them by attacking first. Hooker, trapped by his own overconfidence, paid the ultimate price.
Gladwell then compared this fiasco with the financial crisis, where “experts” knew everything about the market and could predict what would happen. They thought they knew the outcome of their actions, and this overconfidence led to a financial meltdown.
Research shows that as our amount of information increases, the likelihood of making a better decision or prediction actually does not increase significantly, but what does increase is our confidence in the accuracy of the prediction. Knowledge does not equal better decisions; we all over-estimate the value of extra information.
We have a tendency to become more confident in our decisions because of how much we know. Excess confidence can lead to mis-calibration—where you think you know more than you actually do. This is counter-intuitive: we think that mistakes are due to lack of information, rather than because of overconfidence resulting from too much information. In times of crisis we think we need daring and bold decision making, what we need in times of crisis is humility.
A key sign that a leader is overconfident is when he or she stops listening to those around them; when they cut themselves off from others. It is necessary for a leader to develop humility—a willingness to listen to others, to seek wise council.
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