I hate when people say something like “get together with a group of like-minded individuals.” To me this sounds like a bunch of people getting together to agree with each other and support each other’s beliefs.

For a business leader, this is particularly troubling. It’s easy for people to think they’re right; I know from personal experience. And then when people around you tell you the same things and agree with you, your confidence in your beliefs grows further.

The problem is, as smart as the business leader is, as much as experience that leader has with their customer base, their product, their industry, the competition and more, that doesn’t mean that they know all the facts or that every plan for the future based on their knowledge is the right or best one.

So getting input, advice and opinions from others, whether they agree with the leader or not, is really important. But how does the leader get the input of contrary ideas from their direct reports, from consultants and others?

In my experience, they need to search for people that have their own ideas and are not afraid to express them and to defend them. Then the leader needs to send the clear message on a consistent and recurring basis that they are open to hearing the conflicting ideas from them.

I’ve watched some executives ask for people’s opinions at a leadership meeting and then to quickly reject the ideas and shut down the discussion. A) they should be more willing to consider and discuss those contrary ideas and B) when they do this, they bit-by-bit close the valve that allows contrary ideas to flow from their leadership team in the future.

Similarly, they may make a decision without first having asked opinions of others including those that need to execute the plan. When they do that, they don’t get the input that might be valuable for this particular decision, they frustrate the impacted department leader and they reduce the chance of getting honest input when they ask for it.

For those leaders who don’t and won’t ask for the input of others because they know they’re right and/or because they don’t believe they have functional leaders who have good ideas or don’t want to pay consultants to tell them things that they are convinced in advance are wrong, I urge them to think about situations in their life, professional or otherwise, where the opinion or advice from someone else helped them solve a problem, come up with a better strategy or improve results upon execution of a decision.

Further, if the leader never gives the leadership team the opportunity to offer differing opinions, how will they ever grow as leaders? If that CEO doesn’t want the members of the leadership team to get better, that is likely to limit how much the company can grow and improve and/or to have those leaders leave for another role with another CEO that is more open to differing opinions.

In conclusion, a business leader who fosters an environment where other opinions and ideas are welcome will be a better company that is also able to scale. But please also note that inviting differing opinions and ideas doesn’t always mean changing your decision. And when you don’t, do make sure the impacted people, particularly the functional heads of the impacted departments, understand why you made your decision. And to do this to the point where they get it.