Elevating your Awareness: 5 Biases

Biases are a big challenge for everyone. But they can be seriously impactful for leaders when it comes to making effective decisions. Biases based on our own experience and perspective can profoundly affect our duties from driving the right change, creating the right initiatives, interpreting feedback, and executing on our objectives.

If you haven’t already, you know what to do:

First off, what is a bias?

Many leaders (and people) don’t recognise they have them and quite often they’re unconscious. But the reality is they are impacting and influencing our everyday decisions. So let’s take a look at 5 common biases which all leaders stumble over and I am hoping this will open your eyes to what is at play.

5 Types of Bias all Leaders should be aware of

1) Confirmation Bias - is a bias where people will validate and see all the positives and good reasons why their idea or decision makes sense, but will often overlook or not think about the risks or potential pitfalls their good idea will bring.

2) Anchoring Effect - a bias where we have a pre-existing belief or data point of what looks right and we use that as a benchmark. Instead of seeing new information as neutral or objective, we compare it to our reference point, our anchor. This can skew our decision-making as the anchor might not be accurate and the environment is likely to have changed since we established the anchor.

3) Narrative Fallacy - is our desire to attach facts to a story so that we have some form of understanding. When an unpredicted event occurs, we immediately come up with explanatory stories that are simple and coherent. We tend to create a narrative in our head and attach a cause and effect to random facts or events. We become a victim because our brains want to make sense of certain events, even though there may be no meaning or real understanding. The challenge is it wrongly increases our impression of our understanding of the event, which can impact how we approach situations or make decisions.

4) Loss Aversion - is the tendency to actively avoid losses rather than focusing on the potential gains. Losing is seen as being twice as painful as winning. For example, we would psychologically prefer to avoid losing £20 than gaining £20. This can be common in leaders and change agents, where we don’t make bold decisions with potentially fruitful results. This is because we focus too much on the potential pain or disruption this will bring, which may be true short-term, but the longer-term gains could be exponential.

5) Hindsight Bias - this bias is when an outcome proves true to the original belief and the individual wrongly believes that they “knew it all along”. They view the events as more predictable than they really are. Cognitively people tend to distort or even misremember their original prediction, as it is generally easier to recall what aligns with the actual outcome.

Bonus

6) Curse of Knowledge Bias - this is a cognitive bias where you assume the audience has the same background and knowledge as you do. When we know something well, it can be hard to see it from a beginner’s state of mind. This is a great one for leaders and just being aware of it can make you think differently about how you communicate with an audience and try to look at things through a different lens.

Hope this summary of some of the key biases impacting leaders is helpful. Perspective is really everything though, we often have blind spots or pre-existing beliefs that we’re not aware of. “You don’t know what you don’t know”. So working with different colleagues, coaches and other leaders can help you to open up your thinking, recognise your biases and expand your viewpoints and considerations to ultimately lead more effectively.

All the best

David

Resources Of The Week

• Book - Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet. This book is a hidden gem. Captain David Marquet was used to giving orders in the high-stress environment of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine. It was crucial his men did their job well. But the ship was dogged by poor morale, poor performance and the worst retention in the fleet. Marquet recognised the importance of building other leaders and passing the responsibility on rather than creating followers.

• YouTube - Les Brown - It’s Not Over until you Win. Les Brown is a veteran Motivation Speaker and has been inspiring people for decades. This is a classic clip of Les Brown doing what he does best - getting people fired up to be a better version of themselves.

• Podcast - The Diary of a CEO by Steven Bartlett. Ex CEO of europe’s fastest-growing social media agency which he founded in 2014. In his Podcasts, he meets with leaders and entrepreneurs to explore their success and what has accelerated their growth. No script, just conversation.

Quote of the Week

Last week’s issue: Speaking Better: 10 Ideas

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