How Much Truth Can You Handle for True Leadership Growth? (S2.46)

Potential Leader Lab

How can leaders shift their mindset from needing to be right to seeking deeper understanding through questions?

Perry Maughmer challenges conventional notions of leadership by emphasizing the value of questions over answers. Perry explores how authentic leaders prioritize understanding over judgment, curiosity over certainty, and truth over comfort.

He underscores the importance of empathy and humility in leadership, urging leaders to adapt their strategies to present realities instead of relying on past experiences.

Perry examines the relationship between curiosity and judgment, highlighting how effective leaders should lean towards curiosity to truly comprehend different perspectives. True leadership isn't about having all the right answers but about continuously asking deep, insightful questions. Referencing Milan Kundera, Perry contrasts the "stupidity of having answers" with the "wisdom of having questions."

Leaders need to create their own experiments, take action without waiting for permission, and embrace the inherent discomfort in confronting truth. Perry talks about the biases that leaders need to update through continuous exploration and highlights the importance of accepting responsibility for one's choices.

Perry introduces the "ladder of inference" to explain how leaders form their beliefs and emphasizes the importance of challenging these beliefs to foster a growth mindset. Leaders should be open to new information and perspectives, and not just seek validation for their current views.

Perry calls on you to embrace complexity and uncertainty, avoid oversimplifying issues, and recognize that true leadership involves operating within discomfort.

Top Takeaways

Effective leaders prioritize understanding situations and people over making quick judgments.

Leaders should focus on asking questions rather than providing answers to uncover deeper truths and insights.

True growth in leadership requires embracing truths, no matter how uncomfortable or challenging they may be.

Successful leaders exhibit humility and empathy to build trust and understanding within their teams.

Leaders need to adapt their strategies based on current realities rather than relying on past experiences.

Curiosity should be nurtured and utilized by leaders to navigate complexity and ambiguity effectively.

With the freedom to make choices comes the responsibility to make informed and growth-oriented decisions.

Leaders must actively seek, receive, and act on feedback to improve their self-awareness and effectiveness.

True leadership involves continuously questioning existing beliefs and being open to new information and perspectives.

Prioritizing effectiveness in leadership actions and decisions is more important than merely being efficient. This means focusing on meaningful impacts rather than just process optimization.

Key Moments

05:05 Find truth tellers who give constructive, clear feedback.

08:41 Feedback process leads to confirmation bias loop.

11:42 Challenging yourself fosters leadership and growth.

15:58 Leaders should create leaders, not followers.

19:33 Focus on differences, not similarities, in problems.

21:28 Effective leadership requires curiosity, embracing ambiguity.

26:32 Never stop asking questions to continue leading.

27:54 Curiosity and judgment must be balanced effectively.

30:21 Missing: humility and empathy in leadership decisions.

37:04 Take action now; leadership requires immediate action.

Perry Maughmer believes the world deserves better leadership; that in every human interaction there is the opportunity to either build others up or tear them down; and that leadership is the choice we make in those moments.

These beliefs led Perry to create the Potential Leader Lab. He wanted to offer those who share his beliefs the space and safety to explore transformative ideas, experiment with new behaviors, and evolve into the leaders they were meant to be and that the world needs.

This is a framework he has used again and again with his Vistage peer advisory groups and companies like Turn-Key Tunneling, Convergint, Haughn & Associates, I Am Boundless, Ketchum & Walton, LSP Technologies, and Ahlum & Arbor.

Perry lives and works on the shores of Buckeye Lake in Ohio, in the mountains of northwest Georgia, and on the beach in Anna Maria, Florida with his amazingly creative wife Lisa. They have 2 rescue dogs and are intermittently visited by their 3 wonderful children throughout the year. Perry & Lisa are living life in crescendo and focused on exploring, experimenting, and evolving their vision of a life they have no desire to retire from.

Copyright 2024 Perry Maughmer