Leadership Notes -- Thoughts on Leading People and Making a Difference in Organizations

Word count this issue: 190

Estimated reading time:  1:30 minutes

Hello from Toronto where I am co-leading a 3 day leadership development workshop with a client. My co-facilitator and I came up with a new word I’d like to share with you today.

Aknowying 

It refers to someone who thinks s/he knows it all and is sharing that knowledge in a way that becomes annoying to the team. Here it is used in a sentence:

He was so sure of himself, he was aknowying.  

I’d like to suggest that leaders do not want to be seen to be aknowying.  It takes a certain level of humility and curiosity about other people to be a great leader. It takes a willingness to learn, and to be seen to be learning, to be a great leader. Our work in the current Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) times is about growing together, not knowing more than each other.

And so may each day this week be about learning, not knowing, and certainly not about being ‘aknowying’.