"How important is being right?"
That's an interesting question, my spontaneous answer would be "Very important". But that is probably because the question has two possible meanings.
The first one is how important is the truth or arriving at a true and rational conclusion/solution to a discussion or a problem. That is extremely important to me, I need to be convinced of things to let go of them, I will not pretend that I believe someone is right about something or that a proposition has merit when it hasn't in order to be nice, not ever. That doesn't mean being rude or emotional about it, I'll just say what I believe about it and that's that.
The second possible meaning is "How important is it that you personally are recognized as the one being right?"
Me personally being the one first realizing the truth or proposing the correct solution isn't important in the slightest. I'm just as happy to hear it from someone else, the most enjoyable way to arrive at the truth is in collaboration. But in fact it is actually quite common that one of the initial positions are the correct one, and you have to be prepared to accept that.
What this could mean in a unit is that I will be happy to arrive at the correct strategy for our team to win by listening to someone that realized it or by collaboration, but if I'm the one proposing the correct move I expect people to listen to that as well. I don't think leadership should have any weight in these discussions, the unit leader might be proposing a bad strategy and that needs to be pointed out and scrapped in that case. Leadership should be respected in matches and in terms of responsibility for the unit, but never in terms of pretending the leader or someone else is right when he isn't.
The correct way to relate to truth claims or other propositions is to disidentify yourself from them, if you identify with "your" position then you are most likely wrong to some degree since identification with a position is irrational in the first place it makes the position itself more likely to be irrational.
I've worked a lot with this in creative coaching in the film industry and some other businesses as well, there are a lot of problems with excessive identification out there, especially among leaders and artists. That is where the whole "kill your darlings!" meme comes from, you identify with your script/idea/proposition/position so much that you become unable to see what is actually good and bad about it, so you need someone to help you identify your "darlings" and kill them.
A nice method of breaking identification in meeting is to write down your position/idea/belief instead of saying it, then the notes are scrambled and handed out randomly. You now have to argue the position on the note you got instead of your own. Hearing someone else argue your position and arguing a different one yourself is a great way of breaking identification. You can then pursue the process as normal without the ownership, and that increases the chances for a high quality result.
This is probably not very relevant to the OP
One more thing: I don't believe in a "Right to be wrong" type of ethic. If you're wrong or irrational it is natural that your beliefs are ridiculed, there is no obligation to respect beliefs, only people. If you identify with your beliefs so much that you take ridicule against them personally, that is 100% your problem. This is the problem with religious(and others) people being "offended" for example, they identify with their beliefs and since all religious beliefs are ridiculous they never stop finding cause for offense as people correctly exposes that fact.
That can happen in a game too. A person might claim a "right to be wrong" type of respect about something really stupid, and then proceed to feel offended when "his" tactic/build/playstyle is ridiculed or criticised. This might lead to the type of situation described here, but then again it was probably just someone being a douche.
Edited by Sjorpha, 16 April 2016 - 09:59 AM.