The Difference Between Being Right and Getting It Right

As a child, I rarely took things at face value.

I asked questions. I looked for the exception. I tried to examine an idea from several sides before accepting it. My sentences often began with some version of, “What about this?” or “What if that happened?” or “Okay, but then what happens when...?”

The response was not always enthusiastic.

I was told more than once that I would be “great on the debate team.” Other times, the question was more pointed: Why did I always have to be right?

Except that was never really what I was trying to do.

I was trying to be accurate.

There is a difference.

Wanting to be correct is often about defending a position. Wanting to be accurate requires being willing to change one.

Correctness can become attached to ego, authority, reputation, or the discomfort of admitting that our original thinking was incomplete. Accuracy asks something much harder of us: What does the evidence actually tell us, even if it changes what I thought I knew?

That childhood tendency followed me into adulthood and, eventually, into leadership. I still ask the next question. I still want to understand what happens at the edges of a decision. I still notice when a statement sounds neat and tidy but does not quite account for the people, circumstances, or consequences sitting just outside the frame.

Over time, I have realized there is an important leadership lesson in that.

Organizations need people who are willing to say, “Have we considered this?” They need people who notice inconsistencies, test assumptions, challenge overly simple explanations, and ask whether a decision that works beautifully on paper will actually work for the people expected to live with it.

Those behaviors are easily misread.

Curiosity can be labeled resistance.

Precision can be labeled criticism.

A desire to understand can be interpreted as a desire to argue.

Questions can be mistaken for challenges to authority.

When that happens often enough, people learn to stop asking.

That is where organizations become vulnerable.

Correctness Can Close the Conversation. Accuracy Keeps It Open.

A leader focused on being correct may unconsciously search for evidence that supports the original decision. A leader focused on accuracy keeps asking whether new information changes the picture.

Accuracy leaves room for revision.

It allows a leader to say:

“We made the best decision we could with the information we had.”

“We learned something new.”

“There is a consequence we did not anticipate.”

“This perspective changes how I understand the problem.”

“We need to adjust.”

None of those statements weaken leadership. They demonstrate intellectual discipline.

Innovation depends on that discipline because innovation rarely unfolds exactly as planned. New programs reveal unintended consequences. Policies work differently across settings. Data expose patterns we did not expect. Students, families, teachers, and communities experience decisions in ways leaders could not fully predict from the conference table.

Leaders who must remain correct will defend the original answer.

Leaders committed to accuracy will keep improving it.

Questions Are Not Automatically Opposition

One of the most important things a leader can learn is to separate a challenging question from a challenge to their leadership.

Those are not the same thing.

When someone says, “What happens if...?” the most productive response is not necessarily to explain why the decision is already settled. Sometimes the better response is simply:

“That is worth considering.”

The people who complicate a conversation may also be the people helping us see what the conversation is missing.

A healthy organization needs agreement, certainly. It also needs productive friction.

Without it, teams can become very efficient at reinforcing one another’s assumptions.

Innovation requires leaders who are confident enough to tolerate the question that interrupts the neat answer.

Curiosity Is a Leadership Asset When We Learn How to Use It

Curiosity alone is not enough. Questions can become unproductive if they are endless, performative, poorly timed, or disconnected from action.

The goal is not to question everything forever.

The goal is to create a culture where thoughtful questioning helps the organization move toward better decisions.

That requires responsibility on both sides.

Those asking questions should be willing to listen, examine evidence, and revise their own thinking.

Those receiving questions should resist automatically assigning negative intent.

The standard should not be, “Who was right?”

The better question is, “What are we learning?”

That small shift changes a team's culture.

Before we can build cultures that value accuracy over correctness, we have to examine how we personally respond when our thinking is questioned. Our reactions often reveal whether we truly value curiosity or simply value it when it confirms what we already believe.

• When someone challenges an idea I support, is my first instinct curiosity or defensiveness?

• Do I interpret questions as attempts to improve the work or as challenges to my authority?

• Am I more invested in defending the original decision or understanding whether it is working?

• Who on my team regularly asks the questions other people avoid?

• Have I unintentionally labeled thoughtful people as “negative,” “difficult,” or “argumentative” because they notice complications?

• Do people in my organization feel safe saying, “I think we may have missed something”?

• When new evidence contradicts my assumptions, how easily can I change my position?

• Do our meetings reward agreement more than thoughtful examination?

• Are there decisions we continue defending largely because changing course would require admitting we were wrong?

• What would become possible if our goal were not to prove who was correct, but to become increasingly accurate?

Cultures of inquiry do not happen simply because leaders say they value questions. People decide whether questioning is truly safe by watching what happens when someone actually raises a difficult one.

• Normalize the second question.

  • When an idea is presented, intentionally ask, “What might we be missing?” or “Under what circumstances would this not work?” Make examination part of the process, not something that only happens after a problem appears.

• Separate the person from the question.

  • Do not assign motive too quickly. A difficult question may simply be a difficult question.

• Reward thoughtful dissent.

  • Acknowledge when someone identifies an overlooked consequence, even if it complicates the plan. People notice whether leaders genuinely appreciate that contribution.

• Ask for disconfirming evidence.

  • Instead of only asking what supports a proposal, ask what evidence might suggest another approach is needed.

• Make revision visible.

  • When new information changes a decision, say so. Explain what was learned and why the direction shifted.

• Watch your labels.

  • Watch for words such as resistant, negative, difficult, argumentative, or not a team player. Sometimes those labels are accurate. Sometimes they are shorthand for “this person keeps asking questions we would rather not answer.”

• Build structured opportunities for challenge.

  • Invite someone to intentionally examine assumptions before finalizing a major decision. Productive dissent works better when it is expected rather than treated as disruption.

• Teach teams when to move.

  • Accuracy does not mean endless analysis. Establish decision points where the available evidence is sufficient to act, while remaining willing to revisit the decision when meaningful new information emerges.

    
    

The Leadership Lesson

I spent years believing that my instinct to question things was something I needed to soften.

Perhaps some of it did need refining. Every strength does.

What I understand differently now is that the underlying instinct was never primarily about needing to be right.

It was about needing things to make sense.

It was curiosity.

It was wanting the fuller picture.

It was recognizing that the first answer is not always the complete answer.

Leadership desperately needs people willing to do that work.

The challenge is creating organizations mature enough to distinguish between someone trying to win an argument and someone trying to improve the accuracy of our collective understanding.

Innovation rarely comes from protecting the first answer.

It comes from people willing to look again, ask another question, examine another perspective, and adjust when the evidence tells us something different.

Perhaps the goal was never to be right.

Perhaps the goal is to keep getting more accurate.

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