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As a leader, why should you share your knowledge to your workmates?

It seems that if you teach your coworkers too much they might just replace you or make you redundant.

There must be something that the leader is confident about. Why would you choose to do this as a leader?

enderland
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paulj
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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs cgp grey has a very good explanation on how to become a leader and stay a leader. it may answer your question – Topher Brink Oct 26 '16 at 10:28
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    VTC unclear since I can't tell whether "leader" refers to a manager, domain expert or simply someone with seniority/experience. I think we've covered this subject before but can't seem to find any decent matches on the site. – Lilienthal Oct 26 '16 at 10:42
  • I made a pretty significant edit here to clarify what I think you are asking. If that changed your intent too much, feel free to further [edit] and clarify. – enderland Oct 26 '16 at 11:16
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    If you are supposed to teach your coworkers something and you don't, you are not doing your job, and the company will replace you with someone who does. Refusing to share your knowledge is one of the surest ways to get fired. – gnasher729 Oct 26 '16 at 12:07
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    If you don't share, you can't be replaced. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted. – cdkMoose Oct 26 '16 at 12:59
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    @cdkMoose: The second part is correct. The first part - you can be replaced. – gnasher729 Oct 26 '16 at 13:18
  • You can get replaced no matter how much you hoard information. There is no benefit whatsoever to hoarding information and lots of benefits to sharing it. – HLGEM Oct 26 '16 at 13:38
  • @gnasher729, true. I was speaking in the sense of not wanting to share because you might get replaced by people who can do your job. Which is actually the desirable result for a manager/leader – cdkMoose Oct 26 '16 at 14:34
  • Let's say you can't be moved to a better position in the company and replaced. You can be moved to a position outside the company (aka fired) and be replaced. – gnasher729 Oct 27 '16 at 10:04

2 Answers2

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As a leader, why should you share your knowledge to your workmates even though you knew that your workmates might replace you? There must be something that the leader is confident about.

  • A confident leader isn't afraid of helping others.
  • A confident leader knows that sharing and helping the company grow and improve puts her/himself in a position to move up in the ranks.
  • A confident leader knows that if a little bit of knowledge is all it takes to be replaced, then this isn't the kind of company a good leader wants to work for.
  • A confident leader knows that hoarding knowledge is a poor way to lead.
  • A confident leader knows that the best way to be effective is to help those whom you lead be the best they can be
Joe Strazzere
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Several reasons I can think of.

Networking, these colleagues will hopefully respect you for sharing and might be an asset to you in the future.

Project and work efficiency, upskilling colleagues can make the work go more smoothly.

Promotion, you never stop learning yourself, so you should stay ahead of colleagues and step up (either there or elsewhere).

Experience, teaching skills are learnt, not inherent, being able to explain things in ways which others grasp is a valuable skill in itself.

There's plenty of others, there's also downsides as you intimate in your question.

Kilisi
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