As a consultant¹, I’m used to people asking me for my view, opinion, or advice. At the same time, I’m painfully aware that on most issues I’m commenting on, I’m not an authority. My clients usually are better experts in their fields of business, have a more comprehensive perspective on their goals and targets, and know their employees, suppliers, customers, and other interested parties much more deeply than I ever will. Still, they engage me to help them solve their problems, because they seek out my authority not in the “what”, but in the “how”. When working with them, I recommend the best paths and methods to solve their specific problems – all the time keeping in mind that it’s their problems, not mine. Therefore, when the collaboration is going smoothly, they fully own their “what” while taking my guidance on the “how”.

Well beyond consulting relationships, it’s certainly very good practice to pay fine attention to which authority to follow on which topics. Questioning authorities or limiting their sphere of influence on our lives is what allows children to choose paths that are different from what their parents might have envisioned: There’s no reason why I should stockpile dozens of tins of vegetables, fruit, and other provisions, simply because my parents did so for more than 30 years. That same attitude of untangling ourselves from authorities makes people leave their jobs, life partners, or home countries, and it is the breeding ground for all discoveries, inventions, and revolutions². It is also the starting point for all inner journeys we embark on, as all personal or spiritual development starts with doubting the authority of our assumptions on ourselves³. In sum: If noone ever challenged authority, eventually, all things would stall to a standstill.

However, in our day and age, the need to challenge authorities seems to have gone over the top. Oftentimes, it has become fashionable to question authorities simply because they are authorities: The virologist cannot be believed on insights around the corona virus; the politician cannot be trusted on political decisions; the journalist cannot be depended on in matters that require journalistic research; the old white woman cannot be believed on any perspectives at all. Instead, advice is sought on Tiktok, Reddit, Youtube, or Instagram, from random people who have opinions and voice them – but may actually lack all relevant experience, expertise, or frameworks.

There’s a dilemma here: Of course, any authority within a given system benefits from the stability of this very system and therefore most likely suffers from blind spots when it comes to seeing the system’s weaknesses or faults⁴. So, by and large, authorities are not the most enthusiastic fighters for system change. However, not every system change requires an overthrow of the system’s authorities, and just because authorities are wrong on some aspects of the system, this doesn’t automatically imply that they’re wrong in everything they think, say, or do. The mother who pulls her baby daughter away from the fireplace is doing the right thing – even if she’s a manipulative bully terrorising her spouse day in day out; and the whole family might benefit more from skillful therapeutic interventions than from an implosion of the family structure⁵.

The ultimate challenge for dealing with authorities therefore, ultimately, lies in each of us individually: It’s all about deciding when to accept guidance from whom – and when to deviate from authorities’ directions for good reasons. It’s about judgment and balance, not about taking sides.

So here’s my third wish for 2024: Let us accept authorities when it makes sense – but shun them whenever they cease to be helpful.

---

1. This is the third of six posts in a micro-series on wishes for the year that is about to start. The posts are neither scientific nor fictional, so anything written here could be completely wrong or absolutely real. The photos illustrating the posts are taken at the coast of the Baltic Sea, in or near the small village of Ahrenshoop where I happen to spend a short winter vacation. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the content of the posts. ↩︎
2. After all the years of thinking about such issues, my all-time favorite book on this subject is still Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” (1962). ↩︎
3. The one book to read on this – in my humble opinion – is “How the way we talk can change the way we work” by Lisa Laskow Lahey and Robert Kegan (2000). ↩︎
4. On this, of course, the works of Daniel Kahnemann and Amos Tversky are the reference point, for example the classic “Judgment under uncertainty” (1974), or the more recent “Thinking fast and slow” (2011). ↩︎
5. For obvious reasons, the opposite could also be the case. This is an example, not a general rule. ↩︎