Ego
“One of the hardest things in the world is to be right and not hurt other people with it.”
- Dallas Willard
A young leader was venting his frustration. He had been telling those that lead him that they should do something for years and no one seemed to listen. And now some new hire had suggested the same thing and they were taking their advice. I’ve heard this so many times that I know precisely how I should respond. I said, “Great news, right?” And I always get the same incredulous look.
The question I offer next is also always the same: “Do you want IT to be right or do YOU want to be right?”
Because if your interest is in things being right, you don’t really care who gets credit for it or whose advice is taken. The one is completely about what is best and the other is more about what is best for you. And don’t get me wrong, the reason I so quickly identify it in others is that I have seen it in my own response.
Wanting “it” to be right is all about the better good. How the organization and the others involved are served better. How things get more right.
Wanting to be right is all about serving the ego. It is about making sure that whatever good happens is attributed to us personally.
I typically explain that if the thing you thought would make the company more successful, efficient, profitable, etc. has finally occurred, do you really care how it happened? Healthier leaders, the ones that define themselves beyond simply what they do, don’t need the win in order to feel good about who they are. In order to be a truly good leader that is generative in their leadership, it requires that you enjoy others being right or succeeding more than you enjoy winning personally.
And one of my heroes, Dallas Willard, says it so well. You wouldn’t be in a leadership role if you weren’t right more than you were wrong. And you wouldn’t be in a senior leadership role if you weren’t right a lot more of the time than others. And as a high “D” (in DISC), a “Strategic/Activator” (in Strengthsfinder), and an “8” in Enneagram, I usually think I am right and ready to act on believing I am right. But hurting others with my being right is the opposite of what I want.
Sadly, I have trampled over, overlooked, disengaged, and disempowered many others that I’ve worked with by needing to be right. Letting others take credit grows my humility. Taking others’ ideas into account grows their engagement. Letting others be right empowers them to make decisions. It is the pathway to arriving there together instead of arriving alone.
Not serving our own egos may be the hardest thing, but learning to change that can change everything.
Consider
Do you need to be right?
Is your “need to be right” advancing your business or crippling it?
What is something you are focused on now that could better serve the company as a team or someone else’s win instead of a personal one?