Healthcare Executive - November/December 2013 - 32

A s pi r At i o n s

of a

S e r va n t L e a d e r

ov E rCom E ov E rCo n F i D E n CE
One of the greatest challenges for any leader is overconfidence. I often say hubris can destroy your career. So why,
then, are so many executives overconfident? There are a
number of reasons.
First, we have difficult jobs that require self-confidence,
whether it is leading a unit, department or whole organization. Second, we seldom, if ever, get universal agreement on our decisions. No matter what we decide, there
will always be naysayers. Finally, people often criticize our
decisions and may even ask that we be terminated. More
than once during my tenure as president and CEO of
ACHE, its Board of Governors received a letter expressing that ACHE would be a better organization if someone
else were CEO.
As a defense mechanism, we become overconfident and
begin thinking we are right more often than we actually
are. This reminds me of an urban legend-turned-TV
commercial and now popular YouTube video in which
we see a U.S. Navy captain sternly requesting that an
unknown vessel at sea divert its course to avoid collision. When the other vessel replies that it will not
change course and instead requests that the Navy ship
divert its course, the Navy ship makes the request again,
this time more sternly. Finally, the other vessel replies

that it is the Navy ship’s call about what it wants to
do—because the mystery vessel, it turns out, is actually
a lighthouse. I have to confess that I have often expected
lighthouses to move for me.
tA l k l E s s, l i s t E n o F t E n
Another big problem with overconfidence is that you do
not listen to others enough, or others do not tell you what
they really think. This can have disastrous consequences;
we are all familiar with what happens if a surgeon ignores
comments from her or his surgical team.
There are a number of things I try to do to address
this problem. Even though I love the sound of my
own voice, I continually try to talk less. My mother
identified my tendency to talk early on in my life
when she told me there was a reason God gave me
two ears but only one mouth. When this did not
work, she often said, “Better to remain silent and be
thought a fool than to speak out and remove all
doubt.” I was in my 20s when I realized my mother
was quoting Abraham Lincoln.
Even the noted management theorist Will Rogers once
said, “Never miss a good chance to shut up.” And Robert
Greenleaf said, “In saying what I have in mind will I
really improve on the silence?”

This article is based in part on the Parker B. Francis Distinguished Lecture given by Thomas C. Dolan, PhD, FACHE, FASAE, president emeritus, ACHE (above), during the
Opening Session at the 2013 Congress on Healthcare Leadership in Chicago. The lecture can be viewed at ache.org/Congress.

Healthcare Executive
NOV/DEC 2013

Healthcare Executive - November/December 2013

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