The Elements of Good Judgment

I want to ask about young emerging leaders because we have people who are watching these interviews who are thrown into a management position for the first time. They’ve been individual contributors. They’re not expected to manage. They’ve been given no training. For young emerging leaders, what advice would you have in terms of how they can increase their influence and impact as leaders?

First of all, anyone tuning in here, you’re investing in yourself. And I think that that is so laudable and that is probably a sign that you are going to be that experienced, no longer emerging, but seasoned leader in no time.
But I will say the trait that is the hardest to hire for and the hardest to hone is good judgment. And if I just had a team of people who were not necessarily great at a whole bunch of things, but they just had excellent judgment, they make great decisions, my gosh, I would feel so confident every single day about everything that’s happening around me.
And so what does that mean? How do you hone good judgment? Pattern. Be really great at patterning. Understand how the people around you make decisions, the people who do perform well, who are helping the business, who are driving the team forward.
And this, by the way, applies to mentorship. Don’t ask people, what would you do in this situation if you were me? Ask people, what’s the framework you would use to tackle this problem or answer this question?
Because I think you can learn more from people’s frameworks than from their own actual answers. Because, by the way, the context may be a little bit different here, a little bit different there. They may not have the full picture to your exact answer, the specific advice they’re giving you may not actually be relevant. It’ll be tainted by their own personal experience.
But if you ask them for the frameworks of, how would you make that decision? Man, you’re going to learn their judgment and you’re going to learn the secret weapon that you can then replicate and use on a whole bunch of other contexts and situations you’re in, not just that specific one that in this particular moment you’ve turned to them for advice for.

And that is such precious advice because that gives you a whole strategic thinking mindset that will set them up well as managers and as they progress through their careers.

Right.