A good manager knows their opinion can influence their team sometimes TOO much. Here’s how to compensate for that.
When you’re a manager, something interesting happens: You mention an idea off-hand, and all of sudden, it becomes a priority. You casually ask a question out of curiosity, and all of sudden, everyone scrambles ASAP to get you an answer.
As a leader, your opinion matters. But sometimes, it can matter too much. You can unintentionally sway team members by stating your opinion prematurely. Or, you can accidentally quell perspectives that are critical for you to hear.
How do you keep this from happening? One of the managers in The Watercooler, our online community with almost 1,000 leaders, kicked off this conversation recently. Below is a summary of the insightful, practical replies.
Here are 8 ways for you to compensate for your opinion weighing too much, as “The Boss”…
Assign others the task of disagreeing with you.
Force the hand, and create a safe space for someone to disagree. For example, in a meeting with ~5 people, a good leader might pick someone and say, “The four of us seem to be saying the same thing, and I’m making it your job to disagree with us regardless of how you actually feel. So if you’re forced to play the role of the disagreer, what’s your argument?”
Give someone less experienced a chance to speak first.
This helps prevent folks from just shutting down and saying, “Yep sure, what that person said.” Even if the person is way off the mark in their opinion, it either signals you should spend more time working with them, or it causes the team pivot on the original idea after hearing others. One Watercooler member mentioned how he was recently listening to Great at Work and a high performing example company followed this practice: Most junior employees shared their thoughts first, most senior shared their thoughts last.
Have the person with the strongest opinion speak last.
A strongly-held viewpoint can drown out any potential for diversity of thought to emerge. So have the person who has already thought about an issue and formed a strong opinion speak last. This is also helpful because they’re the least likely to be biased by what everyone else says.
Ask others what they think before jumping in with your own thoughts.
One Watercooler member shared that he’ll often send people a link to a story, article, idea, etc. and ask people, “Thoughts?” to see what he gets back. This helps provoke thoughts from other people, in an unfiltered way, before you insert your own.
Ask everyone to explain their thought-process, not tell you their opinion.
This keeps the people with opinions — but perhaps more trivial reasoning behind them — from dominating the conversation (and wasting everyone’s time). In addition, understanding how someone is coming to a conclusion is sometimes just as valuable, if not more, than the conclusion itself.
Use phrases like “you’re the expert.”
When talking to people about areas that they’re a specialist in, affirm that they are the person who has the required knowledge and expertise. This helps make it clear that your view isn’t any more correct than theirs.
Ask for advice.
When you say to someone, “I need your advice,” you can open the door wide to getting useful feedback from your direct reports. The statement both indicates openness to fresh ideas, as well as a clear request for that person’s personal viewpoint.
Admit what you’re unsure about or struggling with.
Try saying something like, “I’m pretty sure I know the direction I want to go, but I want to be sure I haven’t overlooked something important. Will you review this with me, and poke holes in my idea?” Or “I’m having a tough time figuring this out…” Good managers understand this leads to a very different dynamic. Even if you end up sticking to your original plan, people are more likely to feel respected for being asked to help vet the idea. You’ll get valuable input, regardless.
If you want your team to be making the best decisions, making sure your opinion isn’t driving all the decisions is important. You want people to be honest, to bring up what they think could be better, and to point out what they think is wrong. Try one of these 8 ways to help foster that openness in opinions. Your viewpoint may unintentionally sway others, as a leader — but it doesn’t have to.
You might also find these articles helpful…
