Stop Proving You're Smart

Imagine one of your team members walks into your cabin with an important report. Unknown to them, you've already received exactly the same report from someone else.

What do you do?

Do you immediately say, “Oh, I already have this”?

Technically, you're right. But what exactly have you achieved by saying it?

You have proved that you already knew something. Congratulations.

And you have also taken away a small moment of contribution from someone on your team. They thought they had brought you something useful. They thought they had added value. And instead, you reminded them that you were already one step ahead.

Some managers collect information. Others collect opportunities to say, “I already knew that.”

The problem is that when you constantly prove how smart you are, you may also keep reminding everyone else how not-so-smart they are.

And that has a cost.

People don't just need to know what to do. They need to feel that they can contribute. They need to feel that their ideas matter, that their judgement is useful and that their boss actually wants to hear what they have to say.

The job of a leader is not to become the smartest person in the room. It is to make other people feel smart enough to contribute.

So perhaps the next time someone brings you information you already know, you don't need to announce that you knew it first. You could simply say, “Thank you. That's useful.” You lose nothing. They gain confidence.

And over time, you may build something far more valuable than being the person who always knows everything: a team that believes it can contribute something.