I was listening to this recent HBR podcast on The Persuasive Power of Uncertainty. In the podcast, Zakary Tormala, associate professor of marketing at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, talks about the finding that being uncertain is surprisingly effective. It made me realize how important it is for a CEO in particular to show uncertainty with his employees.
Here's why a CEO should be uncertain:
1. Make people pay attention. An authority expressing uncertainty is unusual - you expect them to be sure of their decisions and what they're talking about. So when this doesn't seem to be the case, people perk up, they pay attention, and are more drawn in to the details of your presentation. Don't believe me? That's exactly what came out of the study Professor Tormala did.
2. Make people think. Don't have all the answers. Instead, make your employees think about what is the right answer - is there a right answer? Engage the brain power around you and get them to stretch their brain muscles.
3. Make the company theirs. One of the biggest differences I see among employees at my company, HubSpot, is between those that feel like it's "theirs" and those that feel like it's "where they work." At such an unusually flat, transparent, entrepreneurial company, it's actually difficult to encourage people to share and pursue their ideas that benefit the company as a whole. But you get more remarkable contributions when employees feel like they have a real stake in driving the company to success. These employees are going to put in 120% and they're going to stick around for a while.
4. Give your employees confidence. When you're not the only one sharing amazing transformative ideas, and it's the employees sharing and getting recognition for theirs, it builds confidence among your employees. It motivates them to continue putting their brain power to work for the benefit of the whole company.
5. Give leaders opportunity to emerge. If you're always the leader, you may never give that opportunity for new leaders to emerge.
Of course, CEOs should not always be uncertain. They need to be certain and able to rally the troops and unify the team in the grand company vision. But it turns out that having moments of uncertainty could be quite beneficial.
Flickr photo by Brenda Anderson (curiouskiwi)
