Wouldn't it be cool to know you are unquestionably right?

It’s a conversation that I've had in some form a couple times now. The most successful leaders and organizations seem to lead and inspire with an unquestioned faith in themselves and in everything they do, so wouldn't it be cool to have that? To KNOW that you personally have found the answer to all of life's most persistent questions; you are Guy Noir and you can retire. Because, I want that.

I want to stand in front of a group and give immediate and satisfying responses that calm the anxieties of everyone looking for direction. I will explain with such conviction that questioning my answer will be the same as questioning my integrity as a person. The only pause in my response will be the moment I take to formulate the first sentence, and everything after will flow easily from my lips, because I will KNOW.

Unfortunately, I have some personal obstacles to overcome before I come to unquestioned confidence. The biggest obstacle might be my amazing ability to not know - to question, to doubt, and to caveat. Even the simplest questions unleash a rush of tangential thoughts. For example, "What time do we stop work?" was a daily (sometimes hourly) question this past summer. So simple! There were really only a couple of times of the day I could pick, but in the beginning of the summer I still hesitated. I was thinking, "We have to fill 80 hours of work in the next ten days. The crew wants to leave early at the end of the hitch, the supervisor has scheduled a hike on the third day, and we don't want to be so tired by the 4^th day that we can't accomplish anything. Three crew members are exhausted from working all morning and one member hasn’t lifted a shovel all day because she has been updating Facebook on her cell phone. I want to finish the day with the crew feeling accomplished, but I don't want to push so hard that they're discouraged. . ."

Answer: "let's wait until lunch and see"

If you value understanding, knowledge, and teaching, how can you possibly justify allowing yourself to simplify answers? Don’t people need to know the multitude of factors governing the answer so they can make their own personal and educated responses? Even better, I should provide the response my father gave me last week when I asked about the Wobblies: “You don’t know? Well I have a book for you to read.”

The reality though is that they didn't need to know, nor did they usually want to know, why we are quitting at 4:30 instead of 5:00, and they most likely didn't want to read a book to find out. The crew just wanted to be able to set a pace for themselves and trust that the decision in the end was close to the right one.

Leading for me has to be a balance. I am not going to be able to, nor do I want to, banish uncertainty from my mind. Like Socrates said, "all I know is that I know nothing" and so my confidence and conviction needs to be derived not from why I KNOW, but from what I am trying to accomplish, my goals. On the Conservation Corps I needed to finish projects efficiently while keeping the crew safe, happy, and healthy. Each decision is therefore supported by the confidence in those goals; “we are working today to finish the project but we are not working tomorrow because the crew is exhausted and needs the rest.” On Bike & Build I needed to safely transport 31 bike riders across the country while keeping them safe, happy, and healthy and at the same time helping to spread information about affordable housing. My decisions were based on my confidence and commitments to those goals.

So I may never know that I am without question providing the right answers, but I do know that I am without question headed in the right direction.