Changing one’s mind is not weakness in leadership

Serengeti Breweries Limited

What you need to know:

Challenges to decisions that have been made can originate internally in the organisation and cause leaders to change their minds.

“Saul”, before his conversion to “Paul”, was a staunch Pharisee who hated early-day Christians. So deep was his hatred that he infamously went on several missions to actively seek, torture and kill followers of Christ. According to biblical accounts, on one such mission to a city called Damascus, Saul experienced a mystical phenomenon; a voice spoke to him from above seeking to know why he was persecuting and killing Christ’s followers. Startled by the voice which boomed at him from a bright light in the skies, Saul fell to the ground and when he rose, he was blind. Still blind, he was led into the city by the team of merrymen who were accompanying him on his mission of hate, torture and murder where, after three days of inflection he was cured of his blindness by a disciple named Ananias. Upon this experience Saul was immediately baptised into the ancient Church of followers of Christ and made the claim that he was the “Son of God”. He went on to become one of the greatest Apostles of the ancient Church, participating in authoring 14 of the 27 books in the New Testament of the modern-day Bible.

The first group of forces are those that exist in our external environment. A key role in leadership is decision making and many times leaders make decisions with limited external information available to them. It is quite common for important information that would have a significant bearing on these decisions to become available, or even where information was available before, for circumstances bearing on that information to change once these decisions have been made, giving rise to the need for a change in the decisions. This sometimes happens even after execution on the said decisions has begun. The second group of forces exist internally. Challenges to decisions that have been made can originate internally in the organisation and cause leaders to change their minds. These sorts of challenges could arise from different points of view or even from a change in the leader’s own perspective.

Changing one’s mind does more than just save the leaders involved from foolhardiness though. It also goes a long way in showing leadership prowess. When a leader is willing to change his or her mind due to changing circumstances it demonstrates a leader that is not static, one that is open to embracing change. Furthermore, the pace at which that change of heart is achieved demonstrates a leader who keeps up with the times. Information is abound around us and so changing one’s mind at the pace at which new information is obtained is a sign of a quick witted leader who makes good use of information. The impact of leaders who are willing to shift position is also felt through the organisation in that it promotes diversion of thought and opinion. Team members are open to challenge their leaders with the confidence that their ideas will be taken into consideration. And finally, the mind changing leader ensures efficient resource allocation in the sense that the best ideas, rather than just his or her ideas, get funded.

Changing one’s mind is not weakness in leadership

What you need to know:

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