An executive who solves problems and does the thinking for subordinates essentially creates dependencies and fails to advance their cognitive skills. Executives who are actively concerned with the long-term health and growth of their organization teach their subordinates how to think. Unfortunately, most executives do not realize that whether they intend to or not, they are always, for good or ill, teaching. They may believe their job is to incite “doing,” but all the while their subordinates are seeking greater cognitive meaning through observation and listening. Hence, executives are often accidental teachers, thereby missing opportunities to empower those on whom they must ultimately rely.
There are a number of benefits to be realized when an executive teaches thinking. As executives rise in responsibility, the opportunities and problems they confront become more complex and require concomitant increases in the quality of thought. The consequences of decisions, organizational, strategic, operational, and financial, are larger and demand more complex thought processes. Much of an executive's time is spent fixing problems, many of which are the result of poor thinking. The teaching of better thinking can prevent problems from happening in the first place. The intellectual capability of an organization can, in fact, be as powerful as its financial or physical assets. Failure to continually develop the thinking skills can thus become a significant competitive disadvantage.
Competition and the marketplace often require that executives be more strategic, leaving operating issues to their staff. However, executives who have failed to pay attention to the development of the thinking capability of their staff often discover that instead of attending to more strategic issues, they are mired in operating problems. The quality of their staff's thinking is not up to the complexity required to handle operating problems. Thus, the executive has to reinsert him or her self back into the operating issues, leaving the strategic undone.