Senior Managers often suffer from Dunning-Kruger — 7 Solutions to navigating the Managerial Myopia in their decision-making.

This post is about Square Wheels^® tools, The Dunning-Kruger Effect, and the challenges of Senior Leadership decision-making for positively impacting People and Performance.

Note: I knowingly suffer from D-K, the Dunning-Kruger Effect — mostly when I believe that I understand things like he pressures on a CEO running a big business or on a sales person trying to meet quota or even the new employee in a large organization trying to figure things out. It applies to ALL of us all the time. D-K is about one’s confidence in one’s understandings of how things really work.

This blog is about my metacognition around my Square Wheels^® models of how things really work and my observations and the research on organizational leadership and themes such as teamwork and collaboration. Sometimes, I think D-K really gets into the way…

The Dunning-Kruger effect is an interesting concept often applied to better understanding “stupid behavioral choices.” It represents a cognitive bias that graphs out like this:

The graph shows the relationship of knowledge and perceived competence to the issues around confidence. (Wikipedia)

This “D-K Cognitive Bias” suggests that those with limited knowledge or expertise tend to overestimate their knowledge of things (“Mount Stupid” on the left), while people with a great deal of knowledge tend to underestimate theirs, as shown on the right side of the graph above. It is this Mount Stupid reality that I want to expand on here; it is NOT about intelligence or stupidity but about senior managers overestimating how much they know about the many things happening in their workplaces and how this impacts their decision-making and leadership.

D-K is about confidence in one’s thinking and knowledge which has BROAD impacts on how organizations think and process information.

But let me reframe this around the theme of leadership and make a few mental leaps… If you want to read more about group decision making and similar things, read my post about Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow by clicking here.

Senior Managers may believe that they understand a LOT about how things work in their organizations (and feel quite confident in that belief) when the reality is that they are isolated from what is really happening at the front-lines. They have no hands-on reality of the workplace and overestimate their knowledge because of their relative isolation and because the information they get is generally quite filtered. This can make decision-making about training and workplace development problematic because they overestimate their limited knowledge. Visually, it can be that long rope separating the wagon puller from the wagon pushers and the wagon itself.

(More information on this Square Wheels® and engagement here)

You can see why Isolation is not good for understanding workplace reality here

We see the impacts of isolation and Dunning-Kruger in places like this:

Employee Engagement

Senior managers might believe their workforce is highly engaged based on superficial interactions, biased information or inaccurate metrics. In reality, engagement levels are generally lower than perceptions.

• Survey by Gallup found that only 1 in 5 employees worldwide are involved and engaged at work — the lowest level in 10 years, while many senior managers assume much higher percentages. And metrics are not reality.
• Managers might interpret silence as agreement, when in fact, employees are disengaged and uninvolved and have simply given up voicing concerns.

Trust and Collaboration

Trust is often overestimated by those in leadership positions and they cannot feel the reality:

• Senior managers might assume high trust levels based on their own experiences and relationships with other executives.

• Only 21% of American workers strongly agree that they trust the leaders of their organization, down from 24% in 2019 (Gallup)

• 86% of executives say they highly trust their employees but only 60% of employees feel highly trusted by their employers — and only 61% of workers agree that their perceived lack of trust by their employer impacts their ability to do their jobs well (PwC).

• A study by EY found that less than half of global professionals trust their employer, boss, or team / colleagues.

Workplace Happiness and Teamwork

The perception of employee happiness can be skewed:

• Managers might equate perks like free snacks or casual Fridays with overall job satisfaction.

• Research shows that 70+ percent of employees are not engaged, with one in five being actively disengaged at work.

• Only 39% of workers feel strongly that someone cares about them as a person at work, down from 47% before the pandemic (Gallup).

• Employee engagement is at a 10-year low, with fewer workers knowing what is expected of them at work (Gallup).

Organizational Communications and Alignment

Senior leaders often overestimate the effectiveness of organizational communications in generating alignment to shared goals and objectives:

• They might believe that because information is disseminated, it’s understood and acted upon.

• In reality, 74% of employees feel they’re missing out on company information and news.

The reality and the perception of reality

Innovation and Creativity

There’s often a large gap between perceived and actual innovation levels: Workplaces continue to roll on Square Wheels when the Round Wheels are already in the wagon. People are just too busy to look for new opportunities or to find the time to implement possible new solutions. It is a powerful rationale for understanding the real value and cost within workplace innovation initiatives.

• Senior managers often believe their company culture fosters innovation based on high-level initiatives and not actual workplace happenings.

• 54% of employees don’t believe their company’s leadership encourages innovation (and may punish failures). Josh Berson says that only 25% of companies believe their leadership development is delivering high value and only 24% say their leadership model is up-to-date or highly relevant.

• There’s just not time for trying to do things differently for most workers and supervisors and change is often resisted. A Univ. of Phoenix study found 60-65% of employees feel they don’t have adequate time nor resources to innovate in their workplaces. 

Customer Satisfaction

Senior leaders often have inflated views of customer satisfaction. I am pretty sure that my main bank here in Ecuador operates on the belief that, “We’re no worse than anyone else.” (seriously!)

• They might rely on outdated metrics or anecdotal evidence from a small sample of customers our friends or what other senior managers report — and few talk to regular customers

• Meanwhile, 54% of customers say most companies need to improve their customer experience, but there is no way to get the organizations to listen.

Thus, 

Isolation is a killer. The name of the image on the right is, “One less bump per revolution.”

Overall Summary and Implications of the above

Senior managers exhibiting signs of the Dunning-Kruger effect will display several telltale behaviors that indicate they’re overestimating their knowledge and abilities. Here are some of the most common signs:

1. Resistance to feedback: Managers who consistently reject or dismiss constructive criticism and performance feedback, believing they know better than others or metrics.

2. Overconfidence in decision-making: Making important decisions without seeking input from others nor considering alternative viewpoints. Group decision-making is abnormal in many C-Suites (Kahneman).

3. Lack of self-awareness: Inability to recognize their own limitations or areas where they need improvement.

4. Inflated self-assessment: Rating themselves much higher on leadership and management skills than their employees do.

5. Dismissal of expertise: Failing to recognize or value the genuine skills and expertise of team members or external experts, again, because of over-confidence in what they think they know.

6. Limited curiosity: Showing little interest in learning new skills or staying updated with industry trends.

7. Poor listening skills: Dominating conversations and not actively listening to team members’ ideas or concerns.

8. Micromanagement: Excessive involvement in tasks better delegated to team members, stemming from a belief that they can do everything better.

9. Resistance to change: Stubbornly adhering to outdated methods or strategies, refusing to adapt to new information or circumstances.

10. Overestimation of team engagement: Assuming high levels of employee engagement and satisfaction without concrete evidence and even in the face or evidence to the contrary.

11. Simplified view of complex issues: Tendency to oversimplify complex problems, underestimating the challenges involved.

12. Inability to recognize knowledge gaps: Failing to identify areas where they or their team lack necessary skills or information.

These signs often manifest in workplace scenarios such as strategy meetings, performance reviews, and daily interactions with team members. Recognizing these behaviors is crucial for organizations to address the Dunning-Kruger impacts within the workplaces to foster more effective leadership.

Some Simple Solutions:

In a way, for me, the reality of how to improve comes back to Tom Peter’s concept of Managing by Wandering Around as a way of getting better perceptions of reality without all the filtering that happens as information moves up through the organization. For a very humorous view of this, check out In The Beginning.

Read “In The Beginning” by clicking here

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For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools.
Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant who is trying to retire!! He now lives in Cuenca, Ecuador.

You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com
Learn more about Scott at his LinkedIn site.

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