ABDINASIR ALI was about to discover his dream. A hydrogeologist for the last eight years at an integrated-energy multinational in the United States, Ali appeared on the surface to be a mild-mannered employee and a steady provider for his family. But Ali was a man with a plan—although it was one he’d always intended to defer until retirement.
Raised as one of twenty-five siblings in Mandera, northern Kenya, Ali had come to the United States so that he could raise his children with the benefits of better education and medical care. But once the children were grown and he had retired, he hoped to return to Kenya with his wife to educate people about water management and to help drill water wells in his village—something that his country seriously needed.
It was a hope that had developed when, as a child, Ali witnessed long periods of drought in his native village, located in an arid region near the border of Ethiopia and Somalia. During one especially severe drought, he remembers seeing hundreds of cattle, goats, and camels die; his family, accustomed to a diet of meat and milk, had to survive on grain. In more recent years, the lack of water had also severely affected Mandera’s irrigation projects and the flow of electricity from Kenya’s hydroelectric dams.
Now, at 40, Ali’s dream to help his native village in Kenya was still at least two decades away. And although he valued his job and the benefits he received working for a large multinational, he was feeling restless. One conversation was about to change all of that.
“Why wait, Ali?” asked his executive coach.
When Ali answered that he wasn’t prepared to give up the benefits he enjoyed working for a multinational, his coach asked: “Do any multinationals have water-management operations in Kenya or East Africa?” When Ali replied that none did, he was pressed further: Had he considered asking his company—or another one—to organize a subsidiary to develop water-resource management in Eastern Africa? Ali said that it was such an expensive proposition, he’d never dare ask.
“Suppose,” said the coach, “that you framed it as a way for the company to give back to the community and region.”
At that suggestion, Ali fell silent. Slowly, a wave of recognition spread across his face, as if a light had just been turned on in a dark room. He nodded his head, leaned back in his chair, and smiled. And he began to articulate, fluidly and in minute detail, the strategic advantages that a project in water-resource management would present his company. He realized that he could tap into his company’s existing Global Social Initiative project to realize his dream. He spoke with such passion, it was as if he were giving a speech before an enthralled audience. Ali had connected with his dream, and in that instant it became a larger dream than he had ever considered.
That was a first critical discovery for Ali: the moment when change began. He had gotten in touch with his passion, and he suddenly felt motivated to pursue his dream as he never had before. Where once Ali could see only a single path to his vision—which was to work hard until he saved enough money to retire—he now saw many paths, with many possibilities.
In the ensuing discussion, Ali saw how his emotional intelligence capabilities could help make his vision happen—particularly his strengths in social awareness and relationship management. He’d always worked well with others and enjoyed collaboration. As a former engineer, he’d developed many of the self-management competencies, although he had some difficulty with self-confidence and adaptability.
To bring his dream to life, Ali knew he would have to act as a change catalyst, a visionary who could drive home to company executives the advantages of a water-resource management operation in his company. That meant working on his self-confidence. And to promote a new strategy among his fellow managers and arouse their innovative spirit, he would have to become more flexible himself. As Ali’s dream became more specific, it also expanded in a way that his confidence level hadn’t previously allowed: Instead of helping only his village, he could have an impact on Kenya and that entire region of East Africa.
It had taken only a few moments for Ali to reenvision his life’s work. His excitement and hope about the future were palpable—he’d found a new sense of his ideal self, of what he could become. Within a week, Ali reported that he’d made headway at his company with his new idea, and more quickly than he’d ever thought possible. While this new role would certainly require him to acquire new EI competencies, he had made the all-important first step of envisioning his ideal self.
Connecting with one’s dreams releases one’s passion, energy, and excitement about life. In leaders, such passion can arouse enthusiasm in those they lead. The key is uncovering your ideal self—the person you would like to be, including what you want in your life and work. That is the “first discovery” of the self-directed learning process mentioned in the last chapter. Developing that ideal image requires a reach deep inside to one’s gut level. You know you have touched it when, like Ali, you feel suddenly passionate about the possibilities your life holds.
To begin—or sustain—real development in emotional intelligence, you must first engage that power of your ideal self. There’s a simple reason: Changing habits is hard work. One need only think back to one’s successes or failures with New Year’s resolutions to find ample evidence of this. Whenever people try to change habits of how they think and act, they must reverse decades of learning that resides in heavily traveled, highly reinforced neural circuitry, built up over years of repeating that habit. That’s why making lasting change requires a strong commitment to a future vision of oneself—especially during stressful times or amid growing responsibilities.
YOU, FIFTEEN YEARS FROM NOW
THINK ABOUT where you would be sitting and reading this book if it were fifteen years from now and you were living your ideal life. What kinds of people would be around you? What does your environment look and feel like? What might you be doing during a typical day or week? Don’t worry about the feasibility of creating this kind of ideal life. Just let the image develop, and place yourself in the picture.
Try doing some “free writing” around this vision of yourself fifteen years from now, or else speak your vision into a tape recorder or talk about it with a trusted friend. When doing this exercise, many people report that they experience a release of energy, feeling more optimistic than they had even moments earlier. This kind of envisioning of an ideal future can be a powerful way to connect with the real possibilities for change in our lives.
In fact, the very act of contemplating change can fill people with worries about perceived obstacles. Sometimes after people have experienced that initial feeling of excitement about their ideal futures, they immediately lose it again, frustrated because they aren’t already living that dream today. That’s when remembering the brain’s role in feelings can help. As discussed in chapter 2, it’s the activation of the left prefrontal cortex that gives us a motivating hope, by letting us imagine how great we’ll feel the day we reach the goal of our ideal. That’s what spurs us on, despite obstacles.
Conversely, if we fixate on what’s in our way—rather than on the powerful image of our ideal life—we presumably activate the right prefrontal area and are plunged into a pessimistic view that demotivates us and can actually hinder our success.
The “Ought” versus the Ideal
In The Hungry Spirit: Beyond Capitalism, A Quest for Purpose in the Modern World, Charles Handy describes the difficulty of connecting with his ideal self:
I spent the early part of my life trying hard to be someone else. At school I wanted to be a great athlete, at university an admired socialite, afterwards a businessman and, later, the head of a great institution. It did not take me long to discover that I was not destined to be successful in any of these guises, but that did not prevent me from trying, and being perpetually disappointed with myself.
The problem was that in trying to be someone else, I neglected to concentrate on the person I could be. That idea was too frightening to contemplate at the time. I was happier going along with the conventions of the time, measuring success in terms of money and position, climbing ladders which others placed in my way, collecting things and contacts rather than giving expression to my own beliefs and personality. 1
That illuminating confession comes from a person who was quite successful as an executive in industry, a leader in the London Business School, Chairman of the Royal Society of the Arts, and influential worldwide as an author and professor. But like Charles Handy, over the course of a busy life many people become seduced by the idea of power or fame, or succumb to the expectations of others.
When a parent, spouse, boss, or teacher tells us what we should be, they’re giving us their version of our ideal self, an image that contributes to our ought self—the person we think we should become. When we accept that ought self, it becomes a box within which we are trapped—what sociologist Max Weber called our “iron cage”—moving around like a mime pressing against invisible walls. The same effect occurs when, in organizations, the assumption is that people want to get ahead by moving “up” a career ladder at work, rather than acknowledging that individuals might have their own dreams and definitions of success. Those kinds of assumptions can easily become elements of the work ought self.
Over time, people may become anesthetized to their ideal selves; their vision becomes fuzzy, and they lose sight of their dreams. Pressure from responsibilities of a mortgage, paying for the children’s college, and the desire to maintain a certain lifestyle can push people ahead on a path, regardless of whether they believe that path will help them reach their dreams. They become numb to their passion, and settle for more of what they currently are doing. The classic example—seen in many professionals who have grown up in highly traditional cultures—is the person who follows a given career simply because his parents said he should. One man we know from India grew up in such a family; he had an intense passion for music, but dutifully followed his family’s wishes that he become a dentist, like his father had. Eventually, he ended up leaving his practice in Mumbai, moving to New York, and earning a living—quite happily—as a sitar player.
It can be all too easy to confuse the ought with the ideal self and to act in ways that are not authentic. That’s why, in leadership development processes, taking the step to uncover one’s ideal self is so important. But many such programs are based on the assumption that an individual simply wants to maximize his performance at work. They skip that vital exploration and neglect to link individuals’ learning goals with their dreams and aspirations for the future. When the gap between a person’s ideal self and the ideal imposed by the training becomes evident, the result is apathy or rebellion. 2
No Vision, No Passion
Sofia, a senior manager at a telecom in northern Europe, knew she needed to develop leadership abilities. She had taken seminars, read books, and worked with mentors. She’d written development plans and set short-term and long-term goals. She knew what she needed to do—but none of those plans ever seemed to guide her development, and after a few weeks were inevitably relegated to the bottom of her desk drawer. “Don’t misunderstand,” she told us. “I want to succeed in my career. But none of those career plans had much to do with what I really care about. Developing this competency or that one, solely because the job calls for it, isn’t enough to keep me motivated.”
Sofia’s experience is typical of many graduates of leadership development programs. The problem is that many of those programs begin with the wrong assumptions. Real leadership development starts from a much broader place than “career planning”: It begins with a holistic vision of one’s life, in all its richness. To achieve improved business performance, leaders need to be emotionally engaged in their self-development. And that requires connecting the effort to what really matters to them.
We asked Sofia, therefore, to think about her life at a specific point in the future, to let go and imagine what a typical day would be like: what she would be doing, where she would live, who was there, and how it felt. Then we asked her to pick a date eight to ten years from now—far enough so that life would be different, but close enough to begin to imagine. Sofia chose a date in August of 2007, meaningful to her because her eldest child would be leaving to attend university that year. Sofia then wrote a vision of her life in August, 2007, in the first person, as if it were today. We asked her to consciously consider all of the areas of her life, her values, and her dreams about what she wanted to do and be by that time in her life. Her vision was compelling:
I picture myself leading my own company, a tight-knit enterprise staffed by ten colleagues. I’m enjoying a healthy, open relationship with my daughter, and similarly trusting relationships with my friends and co-workers. I see myself as relaxed and happy as a leader and parent, and loving and empowering to all those around me.
By reflecting on a vision of her life in such a holistic way, Sofia began to see how the various parts of her life intersected, and how crafting a plan to make this dream a reality could be not only motivating but inspiring. As Sofia said at the end of this process: “For years, I’ve needed to work on how I deal with people when I’m under stress. I can be too much of a pacesetting leader at work. Now, looking at the whole picture, I see that some of my struggles with my daughter stem from the same set of problems.” Sofia was then able to begin thinking about how to translate those insights into development goals for dealing with stress using more productive styles.
We find that many young leaders, roughly defined as those under 40, have learning goals that are more holistic—addressing many aspects of their lives rather than just their work—than was the case in previous generations of leaders. In part this shift reflects the fact that, as surveys of Generations X and Y suggest, people in their 20s and 30s have a more balanced view of life and work than was seen in previous generations. Not willing to make some of the sacrifices that they watched their parents make, they are seeking a balanced life along the way. They’re not waiting for a heart attack, divorce, or job loss to wake them up to their relationships, spiritual life, community responsibility, and physical health. Many of their older colleagues are coming to the same conclusions, but for them it is part of aging, midlife, and midcareer crises.
Philosophy: How People Determine Value
Clearly, values play an important role in uncovering the ideal self. Since values change throughout life, related to events such as marriage, the birth of a child, or being fired, it is one’s underlying philosophy that’s more enduring. 3 A person’s philosophy is the way he determines values—and which leadership styles he gravitates toward. A leader who values achieving goals above all else will naturally be a pacesetter, viewing a more democratic style as a waste of time. Understanding your operating philosophy can help you see how your ideal self reflects your values.
MY GUIDING PRINCIPLES
THINK ABOUT the different arenas of your life that are important, such as family, relationships, work, spirituality, physical health. What are your core values in each of those areas? List five or six principles that guide you in your work and life—and think about whether they are values that you truly live by or simply talk about. Now try writing a page or two about what you would like to do with the rest of your life. Or, you might want to number a sheet of paper 1 through 27 and then list all of the things you want to do or experience before you die. Don’t worry about priorities or practicality—just write down whatever comes to you.
This exercise is harder than it may seem, because it’s human nature to think more in terms of what one has to do—by tomorrow, next week, next month. But that short horizon focuses only on what’s urgent—not on what’s important. When people think in terms of the extended horizon, such as what might be done before dying, they open themselves up to a new range of possibilities. In our work with leaders who do this exercise, we’ve seen a surprising trend: Most people list a few career goals, but 80 percent or more of their lists have nothing to do with work. When they finish the exercise and begin to study their writing, they see patterns that help them begin to crystallize what their real dreams and aspirations are.
For example, a consultant lists “family” as a dominant value, but still spends five days a week away from his wife and two children, traveling for his job. He says he’s enacting his value by providing enough money for his family’s needs. By contrast, a manufacturing manager who also lists “family” as his dominant value has turned down promotions so he can have dinner each night with his wife and children.
The difference between those two men might be in how aware they are of their true values, how aligned their actions are with those values, or in the way they interpret the value. Accordingly, they reveal deep differences in how they value people, organizations, and activities. Such differences may reflect disparate operating philosophies—the most common of which are pragmatic, intellectual, and humanistic. 4 And although no philosophy is “better” than another, each drives a person’s actions, thoughts, and feelings in distinctive ways.
The central theme of a pragmatic philosophy is a belief that usefulness determines the worth of an idea, effort, person, or organization. 5 People with this philosophy believe that they are largely responsible for the events of their lives, and often measure things to assess their value. No surprise, then, that among the emotional intelligence competencies, pragmatics rank high in self-management. Unfortunately, their individualistic orientation often—but not always—pulls them into using a pacesetting style over a democratic, coaching, or affiliative style.
Take Larry Ellison, the pacesetting CEO at Oracle Corporation. In his relentless pursuit of market share, he commonly challenges employees to “destroy” and “eliminate” rivals from the marketplace. He also constantly benchmarks the company’s progress against competitors, displaying his pragmatic philosophy in the abundance of such comparisons that he cites in his speeches and interviews. 6
The central theme of an intellectual philosophy is the desire to understand people, things, and the world by constructing an image of how they work, thereby providing some emotional security in predicting the future. 7 People with this philosophy rely on logic in making decisions, and assess the worth of something against an underlying code or set of guidelines that stresses reason. People with this outlook rely heavily on cognitive competencies, sometimes to the exclusion of social competencies. You might hear someone with an intellectual philosophy say, for example, “If you have an elegant solution, others will believe it. No need to try to convince them about its merits.” They can use a visionary leadership style, if the vision describes a well-reasoned future.
John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco Systems, reflects an intellectual outlook when he describes a future of living better through technology. He talks, for example, of how integrated electronic systems will adjust the temperature of clothes when people walk from a heated home to a car in winter. Often sounding like a Bible-thumping preacher, he speaks openly of his belief that his company can create this model of the future, thereby allowing everyone to contribute to a better society. 8
The central theme of a humanistic philosophy is that close, personal relationships give meaning to life. 9 People with this philosophy are committed to human values; family and close friends are seen as more important than other relationships. They assess the worth of an activity in terms of how it affects their close relations. Similarly, loyalty is valued over mastery of a job or skill. Where a pragmatist’s philosophy might lead him to “sacrifice the few for the many,” a humanistic leader would view each person’s life as important, naturally cultivating the social awareness and relationship management competencies. Accordingly, humanistic leaders gravitate toward styles that emphasize interaction with others, such as democratic, affiliative, or coaching.
For example, Narayana Murthy is the inspirational CEO who founded Infosys Technologies Limited, headquartered in Bangalore, India. Part of his vision lies in fully engaging people in their work, using a democratic leadership style. As a result, he’s made Infosys one of the most desirable companies in which to work in the customized software development and maintenance field. Indeed, Murthy describes himself as “a capitalist in my mind, but a socialist in my heart.” 10
The Ever-Changing Ideal
People’s dreams and aspirations change as their career unfolds, reshaping what they consider important in life and work; likewise, the ideal self becomes more protean as life goes on. These changes not only determine which of their talents or competencies people are willing to use, but also where they feel most engaged in using them and where they can create resonance. Sometimes people can stray from their calling by just continuing to do the same thing, ignoring changes in their dreams and what is important to them.
That’s why one often sees leaders in middle age jump ship to start another career. When leaders reach a point in their career where they feel mastery, having completed most of their career goals, they can lose enthusiasm for what they’ve been doing. Often at that point such leaders find renewed energy in a new ideal—for example, by giving back to others. Peter Lynch was such a leader. When he was at the peak of his game, head of the dramatically successful Fidelity Magellan Fund, Lynch announced that he was leaving Fidelity—not to take over a company, but to create a philanthropic fund with his wife. He said he wanted to “do good” since he had “done well.” And he wanted to do it at a time when he felt energetic and innovative. 11
Again and again we’ve seen how the abilities that have made leaders successful in business can find new energy in other settings, as their life focus shifts. John Macomber, former CEO of Celanese, moved on to take a government position as head of the Export-Import Bank. 12 Rex Adams, head of human resources at Mobil, became dean at the Fuqua School at Duke University. Both are examples of how the ideal self can change over the course of a career.
Our ideal self-image engages our passion, emotion, and motivation. A personal vision is the deepest expression of what we want in life, and that image becomes both a guide for our decisions and a barometer of our sense of satisfaction in life. 13
Still, if you want to lead an organization, having a personal ideal vision is not enough. A leader needs a vision for the organization. It is difficult to spread the contagion of excitement without having a sense of purpose and direction. This is where the individual ideal self-image evolves into a shared vision for the future. To be in tune with others’ vision, you have to be open to others’ hopes and dreams.
Leading with Passion
Jurgen, the head of a Swiss bank, was having a crisis of commitment. The bank was doing well enough, but not all of his top management team were engaged in their work, and a few didn’t even belong in their jobs. Jurgen didn’t feel he could buck tradition and ask them to leave their positions. Moreover, he didn’t have a handle on what was happening elsewhere at the bank. No one ever gave him the right information, as if they were afraid to voice controversial or critical opinions. Feeling ineffective, Jurgen wasn’t enjoying his work anymore; his only option, he felt, was to step down.
But in our work with Jurgen over about six months, he was able to craft a vision of his life and his leadership at the bank that he found energizing and inspiring. Equally important, it was inspiring for the people he was leading. Jurgen began by looking inside, reflecting on his own life and personal vision inside and outside of work. He also articulated a clear picture of the reality of the situation at the bank and why it no longer satisfied him. Comparing the real and the ideal gave him much more clarity—and, admittedly, anxiety—about exactly what needed to change. And he asked himself the all-important question: “Is there enough that I love about this company and these people to keep me here through the tough work coming up?”
One summer morning, Jurgen hiked with a friend around an Alpine lake and spoke honestly about his fear that he couldn’t bring about the changes that were needed. He looked at the past, present, and future, and he considered the people, some of whom he’d worked with for years. He thought about the problems and about his own commitment—and how good it could be if he just got it right. He reflected on his personal ideal vision, and he focused on what could change if he got back into the bank and really fought. By the end of that walk, he had his answer: “I’m in.”
That decision to get back “in” was energizing for Jurgen; somewhere deep inside he’d tapped into his passion for leadership again. And passion breeds courage—enough, Jurgen found, to take on the tough tasks ahead.
Identifying and articulating your ideal self, the path you truly want to follow in life—as Jurgen did—requires self-awareness. But once you clarify your ideal self, you stimulate hope—an antidote to the inertia of habit. As Napoleon observed, “A leader is a dealer in hope.” 14 The challenge for every leader lies in reaching inside to the source of hope. There lies the power to evoke and articulate one’s personal ideal self-image and the shared ideals that flow from it—and so lead others in that same direction.
That kind of leadership, however, requires not only a vision, but also a clear picture of the realities you are facing.
If you drop a frog into boiling water, it will instinctively jump out. But if you place a frog in a pot of cool water and gradually increase the temperature, the frog won’t notice that the water’s getting hotter. It will sit there until the water boils—and will boil with it. The fate of that poached frog isn’t so unlike that of some leaders who settle into routine or let small conveniences solidify into large habits—and allow inertia to set in.
Consider the example of John Lauer. When he took over as president of BF Goodrich, no one would ever have imagined that such inertia would take hold. A tall, good-looking man with a charming smile, he took on his leadership challenges with vigor, showing particular strengths as a democratic and visionary leader. For instance, during a meeting early in his tenure with top executives of a key division, Lauer listened carefully to their discussion and then articulated a vision for the company that integrated its current strengths but better positioned it for global markets. The nodding heads around the room reflected how his vision had moved them. Over the next few years, as the company restructured, Lauer continued as an effective leader—and as a team player among his top executives.
Then, about six years after taking the helm at BF Goodrich, during a speech he was making to a class of executive MBA students, it was clear that his charisma had dimmed. He talked about business and management issues, but it all sounded routine and even a bit dull. Gone was the excitement that so many had found contagious in his earlier days on the job.
Like a slowly boiling frog, Lauer had gradually adjusted to the disappointment, frustration, and even boredom of the practices and policies of a large corporation. He had lost his excitement for his work. Not surprisingly, within a few months of giving that lackluster speech, Lauer left the company. Seeking a change from corporate life to do something that felt meaningful again, he went to work with his wife, Edie, who was heavily involved in Hungarian relief organizations.
Confronting his loss of energy and interest as a leader, Lauer was beginning a process that would lead him to the second discovery. Further development of emotional intelligence in leaders requires that, once they have at least some vision of their ideal lives, they uncover their real self. It would be a process that would lead him to look deep inside and rediscover the leader within.
Two years after he left BF Goodrich, Lauer took a leadership development seminar as part of the Executive Doctorate in Management program. 15 He still maintained he wanted nothing to do with running companies; that era of his life was past. Pursuit of the doctorate was a door into a new life; he didn’t know exactly what he’d be doing, but he was hopeful about the future.
During the leadership seminar, Lauer wrestled with his values, philosophy and aspirations, and his distinctive strengths. In considering the next decade or so of his life and reflecting on his capabilities, he realized how much he’d relished being a leader. He reconnected with the excitement he’d felt at the helm of a company, working with a team of executives and building something important. Then one day he woke up and realized that he’d be open to taking a CEO job again. The right kind of situation could be fun—one where he could apply ideas he’d developed in his doctoral program.
He returned a few headhunters’ calls, and within a month Lauer was offered the leadership of Oglebay Norton, a $250 million company in the raw materials business. There he became an exemplar of the democratic style, listening to what employees had to say, and encouraging his leadership team to do the same. And he repeatedly articulated a compelling vision for the company. As one of his executives told us, “John raises our spirits, our confidence, and our passion for excellence.” 16 Although the company dealt in unglamorous commodities such as gravel and sand, within the first year Lauer made such improvements that Oglebay Norton was featured in Fortune, Business Week, and the Wall Street Journal.
Lauer had been able to leave BF Goodrich in the first place because he understood that he had a different vision for his life. That was discovery number one—of the ideal self. Then, by confronting the reality of the ruts he’d gotten into and coming to an understanding of his distinctive strengths—discovery number two—he was able to reconnect with his enthusiasm as a leader. And that ultimately led him to get on track again and find fulfillment in a different kind of leadership role.
The Elusive Real Self
Taking stock of your real self starts with an inventory of your talents and passions—the person you actually are as a leader. This can be more difficult than it might seem. For one thing, it requires a great deal of self-awareness, if only to overcome the inertia of inattention that an accumulation of habits inevitably produces. Because routine creates such gradual changes that take hold over time, the reality of our lives often can be hard to grasp. It’s like looking in a clouded mirror: It becomes difficult to see who we really are. And when we finally do begin to get a clear view—often in an epiphanic moment—the reality can be painful. As one manager we worked with, an engineer, put it: “I saw myself being the very person I never wanted to be.”
THE “LOGAN TEST”
ON A WEEK-LONG VACATION at his uncle’s house, 9-year-old Logan set his alarm so that he would awaken early each morning. Then, the minute he heard his uncle creeping downstairs, no matter what the hour—5:00 A.M., 5:30 A.M.—Logan sprang from bed, not wanting to miss a single second of what the day might hold. This surprised his uncle, who’d thought he might be able to sneak in some work while Logan slept (the child’s mother had said that Logan usually awoke around 7:30 to 8:00 A.M.). But Logan was right there each morning, eager to begin the day, when his uncle awoke.
One quick index of whether you’ve become a boiling frog might be the “Logan Test.” Consider a few questions about how you typically act these days, and contrast it with the person you were in the past. Do you awake each morning excited about the day, not wanting to sleep any more than absolutely necessary? Do you laugh as much as you once did? Are you having as much fun in your personal life as you have in the past? Are you having as much fun at work? If you’re finding that your work, relationships, and life in general don’t make you feel energized and hopeful about the future, that’s a good indication that you’ve probably lost touch with your real self and could use some insight into the person you’ve become.
How does such a thing happen to reasonably intelligent people? How does the sense of the person one has become slip away? The boiling frog syndrome—the slow, invisible creep of compromise and complacency—poses perhaps the greatest challenge to an accurate self-image. We no longer quite grasp who we’ve become—although the people around us usually have a clear view.
Many things conspire to keep people from seeing their real selves. The human psyche itself shields us from information that might undermine our self-perception. These ego-defense mechanisms, as they’re called, protect us emotionally so that we can cope more easily with life. But in the process, they hide or discard essential information—such as how others are responding to our behavior. Over time, these self-delusions that the unconscious creates become self-perpetuating myths, persisting despite the difficulties they cause. 17
Of course, ego-defense mechanisms have their advantages. Most high-functioning people, for instance, are more optimistic about their prospects and possibilities than the average person. 18 Their rose-colored lenses fuel enthusiasm and energy for their undertakings. The problem comes when the defenses go too far, distorting a person’s view of his real self—the person he has become—out of all proportion.
The playwright Henrik Ibsen called such self-delusions “vital lies”: soothing mistruths people let themselves believe rather than face the more disturbing realities beneath.
Vital Lies
Self-delusion is a powerful trap indeed, skewing our attempts to assess ourselves. Because of it, we give more weight to what confirms our distorted self-image—and ignore what doesn’t. Surprisingly, those distortions aren’t always self-serving.
We’ve often seen, in coaching sessions with leaders, that even very powerful executives don’t always see themselves as effective—although their colleagues tell us how great these leaders are. It might appear to be humility that makes such leaders underrate themselves, but usually it’s because they hold extremely high standards for their performance. They therefore focus on how they fail to meet their own standards, rather than on the ways they’re doing well.
The most obvious way to correct distortions in self-perception, of course, would be to receive corrective feedback from the people around us. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Given the number of people in our lives who could comment on our behavior, you’d think that we’d all be awash in feedback, and continually able to correct the distortions in our self-perception. So why doesn’t that happen?
One reason is the CEO disease that we examined in the previous chapter. That phenomenon makes people deny their leaders important information—not only about their behavior and leadership styles, but also about the state of the organization. The reasons people are silent include fear of the leader’s wrath, not wanting to be seen as the bearers of bad news, or wanting to appear as “good citizens” and team players.
But it isn’t just CEOs who suffer from this disease: Most leaders are deprived of important feedback. Often the reason is simply that it makes people uncomfortable to give candid feedback on someone else’s behavior. Few people want to intentionally hurt another person’s feelings—but often they don’t know how to deliver feedback in a productive, rather than hurtful, way. They therefore often swing too far in the other direction, making enormous efforts to “be nice.” But when people confuse being nice with providing others with accurate observations about their behavior or style, their feedback is rendered useless.
The Problem with “Being Nice”
The owner and chef of a Paris bistro stood near the door in a white suit and chef’s hat. A couple walked in, smiled, and said, “Are you the owner?”
“Yes,” the chef replied.
The expectant diners scanned the marvelous ambience, décor, and assortment of dishes on display, then turned back to the chef and said, “Wonderful place—great atmosphere and great food!”
To which the chef replied, “You should wait until after your meal to say that!”
As a business owner, the chef wanted praise, of course, but he wanted it to be genuine, not a solicitous gesture. Likewise, in organizations, people giving feedback to others may confuse attempts to “be nice” with providing accurate observations that are helpful. This applies especially to leaders.
For years, some behavioral scientists advised making performance feedback nonevaluative. It would be devoid of any pro or con, making it more palatable and thus, they argued, more useful: By taking the teeth out of feedback, those receiving it would be more likely to accept it.
But this neutering of feedback actually rendered it less useful, according to a study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; a noncommittal, cautious neutrality depleted feedback of important emotional messages. 19 The study, conducted as part of an introductory course in organizational behavior, had MBA students identify a change goal on which they would work during the fifteen weeks of the course. Each week during class, students met in groups to receive feedback on their progress. At the end of each class, everyone would identify up to three instances of feedback that they’d found useful that day.
Contrary to the advice prominent at the time, evaluative feedback—in which people were candidly given specifics about what worked or didn’t work in their behavior—was seen as more helpful than nonevaluative feedback. These findings make sense. We all know, on some level, that others watch and judge what we do—so most of us would rather have the full story, not the watered-down version. When others try to keep us comfortable by sanitizing feedback, or “being nice,” they do us a disservice: We’re deprived of crucial information we need to improve.
That’s why we’ve found that the most emotionally intelligent leaders actively seek out negative feedback as well as positive. Those leaders understand that they need a full range of information to perform better—whether or not that information feels good to hear.
Getting to the Truth
To become more effective, leaders need to break through the information quarantine around them—and the conspiracy to keep them pleased, even if uninformed. Rare are those who dare to tell a commanding leader he is too harsh, or to let a leader know he could be more visionary, or more democratic. That’s why emotionally intelligent leaders need to seek the truth themselves.
How do effective leaders discover that truth? A study of almost 400 executives showed that, for one thing, they use their self-awareness and empathy, both to monitor their own actions and to watch how others react to them. They are open to critiques, whether of their ideas or their leadership. They actively seek out negative feedback, valuing the voice of a devil’s advocate. By contrast, less effective leaders most often solicit confirming feedback. Not surprisingly, those leaders held far less accurate views of how well they performed as leaders. The most effective leaders assessed themselves very closely to how others rated them as leaders. 20
Likewise, information from several thousand questionnaires, using a 360-degree format from bosses, peers, and subordinates, found that seeking out negative feedback—not just positive remarks—predicted the accuracy of people’s self-awareness and their overall effectiveness. If a leader knows what he needs to improve, he knows where to focus his attention. On the other hand, people who mainly sought positive feedback understandably had poor self-assessment—and lower effectiveness. 21
Clearly, then, soliciting negative information may be vital to a person’s continued growth and effectiveness. But to whom do you turn for advice—and for feedback that might not necessarily affirm how you view yourself? How, in short, does a leader test reality? 22
Completing the Second Discovery
As we’ve seen, the first discovery that promotes self-directed learning is identifying your ideal self-image. The second discovery begins with uncovering the reality: how you see yourself, and how others see you. To complete that discovery, however, you need to develop an understanding of your leadership strengths and gaps—the differences or similarities between the ideal and the real. 23
This is the real starting point of self-directed learning: taking stock of the parts of yourself that you relish and want to preserve, versus those you’d like to change or adapt to your new circumstances. A person’s self-awareness—the realization of this balance between what one wants to keep and what one needs to develop—sparks the readiness to change. You suddenly understand what you value about yourself and therefore want to keep. Likewise, you’re able to admit what you need to work on. Each needs to be seen in light of the other—what to keep, what to change. 24 In this sense, sometimes a strength provokes a gap, like using so much initiative that, at times, you do not exert sufficient emotional self-control. Or sometimes a gap actually depends on a strength: A gap in adaptability, for example, may be because you’re an inspirational leader who sometimes becomes overzealous and fixates on a particular vision. 25
Your leadership strengths—what you want to preserve—lie at the intersection of where your real self matches your ideal. Where reality fails to meet your ideal for yourself as a leader, of course, represents your “gaps.” Piecing together this image of who you are and who you would like to be is a bit like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. You start by finding the edges, the most obvious pieces, then fill in more pieces, a section at a time. While at first you may not be able to make sense of the image, eventually, when just enough pieces have fallen into place, you see the whole picture clearly.
An Antidote to Blind Spots
As we saw with the CEO disease, it is not easy for leaders to identify their strengths and gaps on their own. The leader who wants to strengthen his abilities needs to start by seeking out other people’s perspectives in order to get an accurate picture of himself. The 360-degree method offers that fuller picture. By collecting information from many people—your boss, your peers, your subordinates—you benefit from multiple perspectives about how you act and how others see it. The 360-degree view offers a consensual image of your profile of competencies. Whether this consensus is an image of the real you depends on two givens: (1) that the people who participate in the 360-degree evaluation actually interact with you on a regular basis; and (2) that you reveal yourself to them. 26
There’s a good reason for seeking out many different people to ask for 360-degree feedback: Multiple views render a more complete image. In a very real sense, you are a different person with different kinds of people and in different settings—be they your spouse or partner, your boss, or your subordinates. Indeed, the research on different sources of feedback confirms what seems common sense—bosses, subordinates, and peers each see different aspects of a person’s behavioral repertoire. That’s why the same leader can look so different when evaluated from each of these perspectives.
For instance, research done at a trucking company by Professors Gene Harris and Joyce Hogan from the University of Tulsa found that on a 360-degree evaluation, subordinates rated their managers as highest in conscientiousness, while bosses rated the same managers as highest in emotional stability. 27 The managers saw themselves as highest in interpersonal maturity—which their subordinates, and even their bosses, rated close to the bottom of the list. Tellingly, there was one characteristic that both sources rated the same: They saw the managers as weakest in providing feedback. These managers needed the multiple perspectives as an antidote to both their own blind spots and the limited view of any one source of feedback.
In other research, Fred Luthans and some of his colleagues from the University of Nebraska looked at leaders in terms of whether “success” and “effectiveness” were the same. 28 They saw success as indicated by promotions, salary increases, and total compensation. But they defined effectiveness in terms of a consensus view from stakeholders, especially subordinates, who they believed would take a longer-term view. They also collected others’ views of the leaders’ behavior. Not surprisingly, they found that bosses tended to see building bonds, communications, and influence as key abilities of the managers: Those are the competencies these leaders used in managing upward. On the other hand, their subordinates saw these managers as particularly strong in developing others, in teamwork and collaboration, and in empathy—competencies used in leading these followers.
That difference between how bosses and subordinates see a leader’s strengths makes a strong argument for using a 360-degree assessment in leadership development. The best leaders use the competencies selectively, displaying some to one group, others to another. Any given group—subordinates, peers, bosses, clients, or family and friends—will see only a given part of that leader’s repertoire.
Of all these perspectives, the views of subordinates and peers—rather than that of bosses themselves—appear to have the most predictive validity of a leader’s actual effectiveness. 29 For instance, in a longitudinal study of the effectiveness of leaders in a government agency, how subordinates assessed the leader proved most predictive of the leader’s success and effectiveness, both at two and four years following the assessment. Even after seven years, the subordinates’ assessments were predicting the leader’s success—and with far more accuracy than the boss’s own assessments. The subordinates’ views were every bit as accurate a predictor as were much more elaborate ratings based on performance simulations done in assessment centers. 30
The Tyranny of Gaps
Once you are certain that you’re getting a full picture of yourself from feedback, you’re ready to look at your strengths and gaps. As most people know, it’s all too easy to fixate immediately and exclusively on gaps. After all, they’re talked about all the time in organizations, especially when it comes to leadership development. A work culture may foster this concentration on performance gaps, particularly when the leader’s style is one that focuses on what’s wrong in the organization rather than on what’s right. Often these are leaders who have the pragmatic underlying philosophy that we discussed earlier, which is marked by an extremely strong drive to achieve.
On the other hand, sometimes people look more closely at gaps because they have low self-confidence; they assume they’re less capable than they actually are, and therefore tend to distrust or dismiss positive feedback. Typically these leaders, when looking at 360-degree data, exaggerate their gaps while ignoring their strengths.
Emphasis on gaps often arouses the right prefrontal cortex—that is, feelings of anxiety and defensiveness. Once defensiveness sets in, it typically demotivates rather than motivates, thereby interrupting, even stopping, self-directed learning and the likelihood of change.
The Personal Balance Sheet
Despite the potential downfalls of this approach, many leadership training programs—or managers conducting annual performance reviews—regularly rationalize this error in approach with the adage “leave well enough alone,” which means neglecting to recognize people’s abilities in favor of giving attention only to the areas that need work.
But that means the capabilities that people value, enjoy, and are most proud of get lost in the process. Focusing on only the gaps is not only depressing and demotivating, but also results in a lopsided balance sheet. Our strengths reveal the important things that we have learned as leaders over the course of our lives and careers. They are the bottom line of our experience, our retained learnings—quite parallel to the retained earnings on a company’s balance sheet.
Strengths displayed over the years—sometimes called signature themes— typically represent aspects that leaders want to keep, even if those themes are dormant for a period of time. 31 Such signatures offer innate resources to draw on as leaders. For example, Herb Kelleher, the long-time former CEO of Southwest Airlines, always had a strong sense of humor. As a leader, he loved to laugh and make others laugh, and he used that strength to great effect: Playfulness became an organizational strength at Southwest that set it apart from its competitors.
By collecting readings from people in many parts of one’s life, not just work, it’s easier to recognize these signature capabilities.
We’ve seen that the first two discoveries—of your ideal and real self, your strengths and gaps—get you motivated to change. But how do you make change happen? For that, you need a road map: a plan for how to build on your strengths, close your gaps, and make your aspirations and dreams become reality.