In this session, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, talked about the danger of being overconfident as a leader.

Malcom Gladwell

• Experts can still make mistakes. You need look no further than the current economic crisis to see an example of this.
• Does more information allow you to make a better decision? You can still be wrong wrong even with more information. In a study, a group of individuals were asked to make a decision about a certain thing with little information. As more and more information was provided to them their decision didn’t necessarily change but their confidence in their decision increased.
• Incompetence irritates me, overconfidence scares me
• We generally like people who are overconfident. When a brain surgery says before surgery, “Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine,” he is being overconfident and we want him to be. And yet he can still be wrong in his overconfidence.
• When we’re trapped by our overconfidence and arrogance, the world around us can change and we will never know it (example: the banks, and mortgage brokers who thought the economy would keep going up…)
• In times of crisis we think we need daring and bold decision making from our leaders. We don’t. What we need in times of crisis from our leaders is humility (note: I thought this was an interesting point…I’m not sure what I think about Malcolm’s point here but maybe I need to hear more context)
• Andy Stanley’s Question to Malcom: What are the warning signs of an overconfident leader? There is a potential for overconfidence in all of us. We should be looking for it in every leader in our organization. The biggest warning sign is when our leaders stop listening to the advice of others.
• The opposite of an overconfident person is a person with humility – being willing to listen to others
• When a small business reaches a certain point in their growth, the entrepreneur fails to realize that the same rules that helped them grow to where they are at now will not take them to where they need to be. As your organization or church grows, it becomes imperative that leadership begins to become more and more collective.

Your thoughts?