You Don't Have to Know Everything:

“You Just Need to Know Where to go and Look it up”

“You don't have to know everything; you just need to know where to go and look it up.” I love that quote by Albert Einstein. I just wish I had come across it earlier in my career. When I was first promoted to a management position I thought that being a good manager meant that I had to have all the answers. I thought being a good manager meant that I should make all the decisions on my own. After all, isn't that what good managers do? Wasn't that why I was promoted in the first place? Being new to the profession, I didn't really know what it was that a good manager needed to know and what skills a good manager needed to have. (I now realize that we aren't born knowing how to manage but we can learn to do it well if we are passionate about what we are doing and if we have the capacity and willingness to learn.)

Try this exercise. Take a blank piece of paper and list five key characteristics that you believe a good manager or leader should have. After you have listed those five key characteristics, rank them in importance from one through five (one being what you consider the most important characteristic down to five being important, but not as important as the other four). How high on your list did you rank being knowledgeable? (That's assuming you listed being knowledgeable as one of your top five.) Now, don't get me wrong; product knowledge, etc. is important but is it more important than patience, empathy, being dependable, being open-minded, a good listener, a good communicator, a visionary, a team-player or being honest and having some integrity?

How high on your list did you rank honesty and integrity? What does it say about the times we live in when we bring into question the honesty and integrity of our managers and leaders? Without honesty or integrity there is no trust. We need to be able to trust our managers and leaders. We need to know that they are dependable; that whatever they say they're going to do, they'll do it. If I asked a question that my manager couldn't answer, I would expect my manager to search out the correct answer instead of making it up. I would expect good managers and leaders to do that.

I believe knowledge is important but not the kind of knowledge we think of in the traditional sense. How to perform a task, knowledge of systems and procedures and knowledge about the products or services you provide, that kind of knowledge you can find in a book. The kind of knowledge I'm talking about is "people" knowledge: how to get along with people, how to build collaborative teams, how to inspire people to perform at their best, how to ensure everyone in the organization buys into the process and participates in its development and implementation. That's the kind of knowledge I think good managers and leaders need to have.

Good managers and leaders need to know how to assess a person's strengths and put them into positions where they will be successful. Being a good manager or leader is knowing how to be a great coach. Remember: to be a good manager or leader doesn't mean you need to know everything. You just need to know where to go and look it up. If that was good enough for Albert, then that's good enough for me. It should be good enough for all of us.

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