Healthy Leaders Are Teachable

I loved to build things with my dad. Faith and I bought our first house soon after we got married, and dad and I built a deck on the back. That was the first of five more decks we would build together over the next 25 years at different homes. It wasn’t uncommon for me to take a week off work, and for dad and I to spend 12-hour days working on a project. As we’d be measuring and cutting and nailing, Dad would tell stories from my childhood. One I remember well is him recounting how I hated to work on projects with him when I was growing up. He said I was very impatient, and didn’t listen very well, so I’d make major mistakes.

“Measure twice. Cut once,” he’d say. But I would ignore the sage advice. Why? Because I was a cocky teen who knew all the answers and didn’t need help. More than once I’d be humbled by the results of my work.

I don’t think anyone in the first 20 or 25 years of my life would have described me as being teachable. Rather than seeking to find answers, I was sure I knew the answers already. I didn’t need to ask anyone.

Now that I’m middle-aged (56 is still middle age, right?), I’ve come to believe that a sign of a healthy leader is how teachable he or she is. Here are some sure signs that someone is teachable:

Healthy Leaders Are Constantly Asking Questions

A healthy leader has a voracious appetite for learning from others. He or she is constantly asking questions, not because they lack knowledge or information, but because they know they have more to learn. A quote attributed to Confucius goes something like this, “The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute. The man who does not ask is a fool for life.” I’d rather look foolish for a minute if it means learning something new.

Healthy Leaders Want Feedback

How did I come across? What could I say differently next time? What is one thing I can improve when I do this again? If you were in the same situation, what would you have done differently?

You might think these questions come from someone who is insecure, and who is just looking for pats on the back. That could be true in some cases. But I also think a teachable leader always wants to get better. They are looking for people to “sharpen their sword.” You can be annoyed by these questions, or you can take notes and ask the same questions the next time you think you crushed your presentation or sermon or guitar solo.

Healthy Leaders Take Notes When Someone is Talking

Maybe the person meeting with you has an infallible memory. Probably not. When I see someone taking notes during a meeting, it tells me they think there is something valuable they can take away from the conversation. Teachable leaders look at every interaction as an opportunity to learn. They put their phones down, and communicate with their body language that they are leaning in. Taking notes is a visible way to say, “What you say matters, I don’t want to miss it.”

Healthy Leaders Are Readers

I hesitate to use the word “readers” — because you may picture someone who has walls of bookshelves and is constantly working their way through a book. Maybe you know someone who set a goal to read 52 books last year, and then bragged about reading 60 books. That’s not me. I actually rarely read a book from cover to cover.

But healthy leaders are constantly reading or absorbing content to make them better. This might be through podcasts, blogs, white papers, Youtube, audiobooks or other digital media. You can recognize a teachable leader as they are constantly pointing to what they’ve learned and passing those learnings along to others.

Healthy Leaders Sit at the Feet of Others

I’ve been around leaders long enough to see a trend. The leader is young and absorbing everything he or she can. They go to conferences, taking teams with them to learn everything they can from the “experts.” Then, they begin to experience success personally. And other leaders start lining up to come learn from them. Pretty soon they are asked to start leading workshops and speaking at conferences. The leader has become one of the experts.

What happens next is sad. They stop going to conferences. You never see them sitting on the front row taking notes to learn from others. They are now the expert. They come to the conference just in time to speak, and leave right after. They don’t take time to listen to the other speakers. They don’t hang out in the hallways listening and learning from others.

Healthy leaders never stop learning from others, regardless of how successful they get. They may not be able to sit through 100% of every conference they speak at, but when you look at the routine of their life—they know they still have much to learn. Healthy leaders exercise the humility that it takes to be a keynote speaker one day, and sit in the front row taking notes the next.

Here is the question for you: Are you teachable? If you aren’t sure, ask your team. Would they say you exhibit a spirit of humility and desire to learn from others? We likely all have room to grow in this area.