Wisdom has to do with the soundness of a person’s judgment about the ways of the world, and about what people are like, and how they are likely to react. (Jaques 1989)

One component of your ability to be effective in your work is Wisdom.

How do you evaluate a persons Wisdom in their role as a manager?

Often the response is I know it when I see it.

OR it’s some level of Emotional Intelligence (personally I’m not sure that is right or wrong.)

True, Yes. Helpful, No.

Here are some things that are true about Wisdom within work:

• Wisdom becomes more important the higher you are in the organization. Where you deal with greater amounts of people and your judgment impacts greater numbers.
• Wisdom and diplomacy are conjoined. Meaning that they are found together and will contribute to your organizations and managements ability to function with employees, vendors, stakeholders, customers and other key groups that are necessary for success.

Now I think that it is not so much about determining how Wise you are in your work. Instead knowing how your manager, you or I acquire wisdom…that is something we can develop and learn from.

The acquiring of wisdom is one of the areas that shows that action without sound theory and concepts can be debilitating (Jaques 1989)

• Theories, concepts and beliefs are used and reinforced daily in your work.
• These determine how you see your work, others work and what you learn from these interactions.
• Unsound and dangerously incorrect theories greatly distort the way you view others and your work, therefore impacting your Wisdom-Diplomacy and judgment about what people are like and how they are likely to react, leaving you less wise and negatively impacting the organization and your ability to do good work.
• Action taken based on false-beliefs leads to Trust-Repelling organizations & management.

There are several ways of increasing the knowledge and accessibility to increase your wisdom. One way is to find a mentor, either within the company OR outside the company. The mentor is someone who has experience in what you are doing and has a proven track record in achieving what you want to achieve.

Another way is to find a Coach to work with you to build your skilled-knowledge explore what you value about work and work with you to improve your wisdom and ability to make an impact in the organization.

A third way is to read and seek further education – formally through training or and academic institution or informally through reading books, and finding content experts and other resources.

 What do you think?

How big a role does Wisdom play in your work as a manager? In what ways might you increase your wisdom? Do you have any great examples of a managerial-leader who you thought illustrated great wisdom?

image by JD Hancock