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Key points
- Sometimes leaders forget to check their egos at the door and, as a consequence, can hurt their team's performance.
- Self-awareness and acceptance are the first steps towards improving self-centered behavior.
- Improved self-talk and less thinking in absolutes can lessen the tendency to become too captivated by one's own thinking.
As a leadership coach, I am blessed to have the opportunity to work with many fine business professionals eager to advance in their respective careers. These folks recognize the value of working with a coach who possesses the ability to teach and inspire, while offering them ideas for overcoming blind spots and other vulnerabilities that may negatively impact their ability to lead others.
As you might guess, much of the work that I do with my clients centers on self-awareness, reflection, and mindset. This, of course, is a consequence of pursuing a deeper understanding of oneself as a means to becoming a better leader. By developing skills in these areas, we position ourselves to better recognize how to improve our behavior in ways that forge the trust needed to build and lead winning teams.
With that comes the realization that despite our best efforts, sometimes we forget to check our egos at the door and remember that not every thought we have is a gem.
What Does That Say About Us?
Here are a few of the things that behaving in ways that demonstrate that we can’t accept the fact that not every thought we have is a gem suggests about us:
- Our self-awareness is lacking. Sometimes our blind spots are so big and persistent that we can’t fathom how challenging we can be to work with. If we could see ourselves being so captivated by our own thinking that we can’t see the value of someone else’s idea, we would be mortified. This lack of self-awareness takes a toll on everyone on our teams. This characteristic is especially felt by those who want to bring their best thinking to their jobs each day, only to find themselves stymied by our behavior.
- We may prefer blame to accountability. Folks that think that all of their ideas are covered in gold usually find it difficult to accept accountability when things go sideways. After all, how could it be our fault when (in our minds) our thinking is so sound? Obviously, the blame game takes the wind right out of our people’s sails and kills team performance. Who wants to go out on a limb for the good of the business, when their leader doesn’t have their back should their effort fail?
- We see the world in black and white. How can there be any doubt in the equation when our ideas always offer the only “right answer”? There is never any grey when we believe our point of view is the only one worth considering. As a consequence, team creativity is stifled and members limit their suggestions to only ones that support our stated opinion.
- We may not be the best at self-regulation. In addition to being blinded by our own self-perceived brilliance, we likely react poorly to any form of criticism—acting out when confronted by anything that threatens our thinking. Of course, this crushes any member of our team that has experienced our wrath and serves as a warning to other teammates not to question our ideas.
- Our critical thinking skills need work. Lastly, failing to comprehend weaknesses in our own logic, we exhibit a lack of critical thinking. Our teams certainly lose enthusiasm for the work at hand when we show an inability to judge the merits of our own ideas. Team members quickly become turned off and tuned out—taking their best ideas with them.
Clearly, these are not the characteristics that inspire confidence in a leader.
What Can We Do About It?
There are several steps we can take to improve the situation. In my experience, all of these ideas work. In fact, I have personally witnessed tremendous transformations among my leadership coaching clients who have taken these ideas to heart and weaved them into their leadership approach.
1. Make time to reflect.
Self-reflection is the remedy for a lack of self-awareness. We need to make time to reflect on how we’re leading every day—and, preferably, throughout the day. Ask yourself: Do my people seem inspired and motivated? Am I giving my people what they need from a leader? What behaviors of mine seem to get the best response from my team? Which behaviors of mine seem to not get the reactions that I expect from my people?
I suggest that people set a timer on their cell phones that vibrates periodically throughout the workday to remind them to pause for a moment and reflect on how they are leading others at that very moment. This kind of exercise can do wonders in improving one’s self-awareness—and it just might begin to help us understand when we’re becoming so smitten with our own thinking that we’re not listening to others’ ideas.
2. Practice “owning it” every day.
Becoming more accountable for our actions requires self-awareness, followed by a solid dose of discipline. Indeed, as soon as we catch ourselves passing blame onto others, we must have the self-discipline to admit our mistake and accept full responsibility to correct it.
Many of the people whom I coach have taken the advice of asking a trusted colleague to be an “accountability buddy,” whose role is to remind them periodically to become more aware of when they place blame on others and to examine (through self-reflection) whether that blame is properly placed. By adopting this practice, we can become more aware of when we’re being less than accountable.
3. Begin with maybe.
Black and white thinkers think in terms of right or wrong and yes or no. As such, the word “maybe” has been banished from their vocabulary. There’s simply no need for the in-between state when everything is seen through a lens that only shows black and white.
Clients who care to correct this in themselves have seen great progress by working through this exercise:
I ask them to take a week and focus on catching themselves whenever they say the words and phrases “always,” “every time,” “never,” “by no means,” and “not once.” Each time they find themselves saying these words, they are instructed to quickly follow it up with a statement starting with the words “sometimes or “maybe.” Besides raising their consciousness of their use of these kinds of absolute language (which reflects their thinking), they begin to develop the habit of considering other possibilities.
4. Work on self-talk.
Because virtually every deliberate action that we take begins as a thought originating between our own two ears, we can improve our ability to self-regulate our reactions to perceived slights and criticisms by changing our internal dialogue or self-talk. I call it “flipping the script.”
The practice involves allowing ourselves just a few seconds of self-reflection before allowing ourselves to strike out at someone simply because they made an observation or suggestion that was inconsistent with something that they had just expressed. In those precious moments, we are giving ourselves the time to change the self-talk from the kind that centers on feeling threatened or insulted to the kind that creates the opportunity to see the comments as an opportunity to expand our thinking or to learn.
5. Test our thinking.
Critical thinking begins with learning to be critical about our own thinking. With that, we must develop the habit of examining our own thought processes which have led us to the conclusions we have drawn (and are about to share). A good habit to develop involves recognizing and listing any assumptions, prejudices, and preconceived notions that we’ve allowed into our thinking. Do this self-assessment before offering your point of view, and you just might improve the way you think about the merits of your own ideas—and more importantly, be open to hearing and understanding others’ ideas, too.
To get you on the road to becoming more accepting of differing ideas (and less enamored by your own), let me leave you with this thought: The only time we are the smartest person in the room is when we’re by ourselves. Otherwise, there is always something that can be learned.
