Values › Kindness › Open-mindedness
Core value · Kindness family
Open-mindedness
Willingness to change your mind
Also covers Broad-mindedness
What does open-mindedness mean as a core value?
Open-mindedness as a core value means being willing to change your mind: listening properly to views that differ from yours and updating your beliefs when the evidence or argument is better.
Changing your mind feels, to you, like getting closer to the truth. Open-mindedness means you hold your views firmly enough to act on them and loosely enough to update them when someone makes a better case. You seek out people who disagree with you and listen for what they might see that you don’t. Broad-minded people still have opinions. They just care more about being right in the end than in the moment.
What does open-mindedness look like in practice?
- You say “I hadn’t thought of that” in a meeting and mean it.
- You read or listen to people whose politics or worldview differ from yours.
- You ask a junior colleague to challenge your plan before you commit to it.
- You change a long-held position in front of others when the evidence shifts.
- You try an approach you were sceptical about, then judge it on the results.
When is open-mindedness overplayed?
Too much openness can leave you without a stable position. You keep reconsidering decisions that should be settled, give equal weight to arguments that don’t deserve it, and frustrate a team that needs you to commit. People may be unsure what you stand for. Some things, like your ethical lines, don’t need reopening every time someone pushes. Held well, it stays open to evidence, whoever it comes from. One way to do that is to agree up front what would reopen a decision, and leave it shut until that appears.
Often confused with
Open-mindedness vs Curiosity
Curiosity is wanting to find things out. Open-mindedness is letting what you find change what you believe, which is harder.
Open-mindedness vs Acceptance
Acceptance is about people: taking them as they are. Open-mindedness is about ideas: being willing to reconsider your own views.
Open-mindedness vs Adaptability
Adaptability is adjusting how you act when circumstances change. Open-mindedness is adjusting what you think when the argument or evidence changes.
Questions to sit with
- What did you last change your mind about, and what finally changed it?
- Which view do you hold that you’d find hardest to give up, even with good evidence against it?
- Whose opinion do you dismiss before they’ve finished speaking?
More values in Kindness
Warmth, gratitude and generosity towards others.
About the author
Matt Rutherford is a Career and Leadership Coach. The Values Finder is the same exercise he uses with his coaching clients. He also writes Stuff that MattRs, a weekly newsletter with practical ideas to help you think clearer and work better.
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