Now, that’s a really good idea !

We generally expect our leaders to be educated, smart, and well-informed. More often than not, we support, elect, and follow those who appear to have an answer for everything. But good leaders don’t know everything. And the very best ones know that they don’t know everything.

In fact, great leaders are master followers. They understand that no single person has a monopoly on good ideas. And so, they surround themselves with capable advisers whose input they regularly solicit and learn from. Exceptional leaders succeed by listening to trusted associates. They seek for and adopt good advice and truth wherever they can find it. Then they applaud the source of that knowledge rather than trying to take all the credit themselves.

Some of our most respected U.S. presidents followed this pattern of success. Franklin D. Roosevelt relied heavily on his “Brain Trust,” a close group of academic advisers, primarily Columbia University professors, with expertise in disciplines like political science, economics, finance, and corporations. They helped him formulate key economic policies and draft legislation during his famous First 100 Days, which ultimately led to the New Deal and helped pull America out of the Great Depression.

George Washington installed fierce rivals Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson in his cabinet. He listened carefully to their divergent views to help balance his own opinions and establish a new government of the people that could withstand the test of time.

Speaking of rivals, Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet later became known as the “Team of Rivals,” including rival members like Edwin Stanton and William Seward. Lincoln welcomed healthy debate and strong arguments, not to mention Divine guidance, to steer our country through the ravages of the Civil War and ultimately end slavery.

Nelson Mandela is an exceptional leader outside the U.S. who followed this success pattern as well. He listened to cellmates in prison, then brought together leaders from different factions to end apartheid and unite South Africa. Mandela focused on peaceful conflict resolution and teamwork rather than revenge or personal accolades to achieve a much greater good for his entire country.

The same is true of successful business leaders, inventors, and artists. McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc didn’t invent assembly-line meal preparation or the fast-food hamburger stand. He bought Dick and Mac McDonald’s ideas, then scaled them into a global restaurant empire.

Steve Jobs helped pioneer the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and ’80s as co-founder of Apple. But he and Apple didn’t invent the graphical user interface, Xerox’s computer mouse, or the MP3 player. Rather, they significantly improved upon user experience and pre-existing designs.

Sam Walton relentlessly studied competitor discount stores, copying and refining pricing models and logistics that others had tested first. Walmart was the ultimate result.

Mark Zuckerberg developed Facebook by adapting similar social directory concepts already floating around Harvard, such as Harvard Connection by the Winklevoss twins.

The Samwer Brothers (Rocket Internet), dubbed the “clone kings,” built an entire venture model by identifying proven U.S. tech startups and quickly copying them in overseas markets before the originals expanded there. Among their most famous was Alondo, a German version of eBay which the real eBay eventually purchased for $43 million.

Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Mary Barra (General Motors), and Tim Cook (Apple) followed similar leadership patterns in their rise to success. If you don’t know their stories, look them up and learn from their examples.

The telephone is synonymous with the name Alexander Graham Bell, but he didn’t invent that communication device. Italian inventor Antonio Meucci did. Bell was just the first person to successfully patent the idea.

When you think of the theory of relativity, whose name comes to mind? Albert Einstein, of course. But Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz and French mathematician Henri Poincaré discovered the fundamentals of that theory before Einstein published them and rose to fame.

William Shakespeare is perhaps the most famous playwright in history and arguably the best writer of all time. His timeless classics are renowned everywhere. But much of The Bard’s material was borrowed from his predecessors, such as his most famous love story heavily inspired by Arthur Brooke’s 1562 poem, “The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.” Shakespeare didn’t hatch all of the ideas himself. He just perfected them with his own artistic flair.

Countless other examples of iterative success could be cited. The point is that good leaders aren’t always the ones with the best ideas. They aren’t know-it-alls, contrary to what we often imagine. So, don’t buy into that fiction.

Top leaders succeed by deferring to the expertise of others and learning from them. And the best ones do so with humility and without dictating to supposed inferiors. It’s true that great leaders often know a good idea when they hear it. But they often aren’t its sole originator.

This morning on my bike ride I saw a bumper sticker that read: “Don’t mistake authority for truth.” Just because someone is in charge doesn’t mean they know everything. Rest assured, they don’t. None of us do.

Good leaders find and accept truth wherever they find it. And if we choose those kinds of leaders, we’ll all be better off.