The Leadership Paradox: Why Being Right Can Make You Wrong

I watched a senior manager win an argument and lose his team in the same meeting.

His data was meticulous. His logic was flawless. His spreadsheets were comprehensive. He was, by any objective measure, right. And as his team silently nodded along, you could feel their enthusiasm deflate like air from a punctured tire.

Being right had just made him remarkably ineffective.

In this article, I'll show you how to avoid this common leadership trap by exploring:

1. Why being an expert can actually work against you

2. How to build the trust you need before pushing for change

3. The hidden costs of prioritizing correctness over effectiveness

4. One question that can transform your leadership approach

5. Practical steps to turn being right into being effective

Don't Let Your Expertise Backfire

This tension – between being right and being effective – plays out in offices daily across every domain. Marketing leaders clash with their teams over campaign strategies they know will work. Designers hold firm to principles that have served them for years. Legal experts insist on approaches that have won previous cases. PR veterans stick to playbooks that have always delivered results.

The pattern is clear: we often ascend to leadership positions precisely because of our ability to be right – right about strategies, right about solutions, right about what works. This creates what I call the Expert's Paradox: the very expertise that earned you the leadership role can become your biggest liability in performing it.

Build Trust Before Solutions

What you might be missing is that changing minds isn't just about presenting correct information - it's about maintaining social bonds. When teams resist clearly correct solutions, they're often protecting something deeper than their ideas: they're protecting their sense of belonging and identity as a team.

The most successful leaders understand this dynamic. You need to help your team feel secure in their relationships and valued for their perspectives before they'll embrace a new solution.

Watch Out for These Hidden Costs

When you prioritize being right over being effective, the damage isn't always immediately visible, but it's profound:

• Your team executes without conviction on "correct" solutions they don't believe in

• Innovation stagnates as alternative ideas go unvoiced

• Psychological safety erodes as rightness trumps collaboration

• You lose the rich insights that come from diverse perspectives

• Team identity fragments as members feel forced to choose between social cohesion and technical correctness

Ask This One Question First

The most impactful question you can ask yourself is simple: "Would I rather be right, or would I rather be effective?"

This simple question – and it is simple, though not easy – can transform how you approach challenges:

Instead of defending a timeline, ask: "What timeline do you think is realistic, and what would you need to hit it?"

Rather than mandating the "right" process, inquire: "How would you approach this, and what concerns you about our current plan?"

Instead of protecting your solution, wonder: "What am I missing? What alternatives should we consider?"

Let Go to Level Up

Here's the fascinating paradox: when you prioritize effectiveness over rightness, you often end up being right more frequently. Why? Because you:

• Access more information through open dialogue

• Gather diverse perspectives that challenge your assumptions

• Build a team that feels safe pointing out potential issues

• Create an environment where innovation naturally emerges

Embrace the New Leadership Mindset

Making this shift requires a specific kind of humility – one where you:

• Accept that your "right" answer might not be the best answer for your team right now

• Value outcomes over ego

• Understand that leadership is about multiplication, not addition

• Recognize that sometimes the best path forward isn't the one you would have chosen

Take These Four Steps Today

Before presenting your technically correct solution:

• Build relationships first, solutions second

• Start with the 98% you agree on before addressing the 2% where you differ

• Create non-threatening spaces for your team to process new ideas privately before discussing them publicly

• Champion effective approaches rather than criticizing current ones

The next time you find yourself in a situation where you know you're right – absolutely, unequivocally right – pause and ask yourself: Would you rather be right, or would you rather be effective?

Maybe the real question isn't "Would you rather be right or effective?" but rather "How can you create the conditions where being right naturally leads to being effective?"

This question might not just change your decision; it might transform your entire approach to leadership. After all, history remembers effective leaders, not right ones.

A Note on Implementation: This isn't about abandoning your expertise or experience. It's about recognizing that being effective often requires creating space for solutions to emerge rather than imposing them. Remember that resistance to your correct solution might not be about the solution at all - it might be about preserving team dynamics and relationships. Taking time to understand and address these social factors often leads to better implementation than simply proving your point. Remember: a B+ solution with enthusiastic execution usually outperforms an A+ solution with reluctant compliance.