The over-confident, autocratic leader of old is a dying species.

And not before time.

Only a fool would admit to knowing exactly what’s going to happen in the business world these days, and business leaders who routinely gave the impression that everything was fine and that they knew exactly what they were doing are finding themselves increasingly obsolete.

Over-confidence is dangerous, something that’s been demonstrated in board rooms across the world in the last few months.  Don Moore, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business hits the nail on the head when he says, “Overconfident businesspeople routinely delude themselves.”  And he’s very clever, so he should know.

The likes of Jack Welch of GE, Howell Raines and Arthur Sulzberger of the New York Times and Bob Diamond of Barclays Capital (who a friend of mine described to me as a ‘psychotic American lunatic‘) have either gone already, or are finding they need to seriously update their approach or risk everything.

I certainly wouldn’t want to work for an autocratic leader.  I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw their dogma.

“You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower

But finding the right balance of confidence as a leader is tough.  Over-confidence is certain to ensure you lose your way and that your people lose trust in you.  The same happens with under-confidence – checking in with your team every hour to see if you’re doing things right will annoy even the keenest team member.

So there’s a balance to be struck, and (at first, at least) it takes constant course-correction to maintain that balance.

That doesn’t mean that a leader has to second guess themselves or constantly check which side of the confidence line they’re on.  I’m of the opinion that it’s both fine and useful for a leader to show they’re not wholly confident sometimes.

It’s fine to admit you don’t know the answer.  It’s useful to ask for suggestions.  It’s both fine and useful to lead on a basis of inclusion.

I’ve been around people in leadership roles who’ve admitted they didn’t’ know the answer, and it made me respect them more and want to help more.  I believe it takes more natural confidence to say that you don’t know than it does to make up some crap and tell people to get to it.

It demonstrates the value of inclusion and relationships over hierarchy and reputation.

As a leader, once you’ve figured out a direction or a strategy you need to be ready to make the decision, but the method to get to that point is through relationships, not through old-style leadership.

Stephen Graves and Thomas Addington have some interesting insights in their book ‘Clout‘ (although the more religious content isn’t my bag), particularly when they point out how important influence is in leadership.  “Leadership is the surface, influence is the current,” they say.  And they’re both very clever, so they should know.

“Leadership is public; influence is often behind-the-scenes” they go on to say, and this is a key point.

The old style leaders amassed power and glory as figureheads and symbols of strength.  There were public displays of leadership and authority (board meetings, company briefings, official memo’s, etc.) to imprint the perception of confidence.  They’d sit in their ivory towers casting decisions down through the organisation, expecting people to fall in line.  All very animal-kingdom-y don’t you think?

The new leaders amass respect by wanting to do great work and by forging strong relationships.  They use their personal influence to get things done, can artfully manage consensus and might even shy away from being in the spotlight.  New leaders leverage natural confidence and positive influence to move mountains.

I know which one I’d rather work for.