Get Your Ego Out the Way to Get Aligned on the Most Important Things

After more than three decades into my offi­cial career in busi­ness, it’s clear to me that one of great­est levers of growth is the evo­lu­tion of the ego.

When I talk about ​‘ego’, I’m talk­ing about the orig­i­nal def­i­n­i­tion of the word which is ​“I”, the ​“self” which feels, acts, or thinks – not its more mod­ern-day inter­pre­ta­tion of arrogance.

I know that when my ​‘self’ feels threat­ened, I dig in about being right or being in con­trol or hav­ing the answer. I’m not at my best and am no longer able to have an open mind or to hear, under­stand and learn from oth­ers. I get attached to my ideas and per­spec­tives, and then even if I do have the right answer, I take the wrong approach. Every­thing becomes hard­er than it needs to be.

This dark side – a mis­placed form of pro­tec­tion – stands in the way of get­ting aligned with oth­ers. Sound familiar?

Intel­li­gence and Resilience

One of my great joy’s is watch­ing lead­ers learn and grow. Those who are the most effec­tive con­sis­tent­ly get out of their own way. It takes a lot for them for their ego to be ful­ly acti­vat­ed to the point where they are no longer func­tion­al­ly effective.

As I talk about in Chap­ter 6 of Your Oxy­gen Mask First – Deal with Your Emo­tion­al Junk, the true capac­i­ty of a leader is to learn how to respond with intel­li­gence, not emo­tion. Ther­a­py can be a great tool to dis­solve any emo­tion­al issues get­ting in your way. So is hav­ing a pre-planned workaround when sit­u­a­tions happen.

One CEO told me that his rev­e­la­tion after a lot of self-reflec­tion and ther­a­py, was that this skill is at the heart of the per­son­al work most peo­ple need

Only then, he said, can you be avail­able to learn and grow and to engage open­ly to under­stand and solve prob­lems. To stay strate­gic, effec­tive and aligned.

He relies on his morn­ing resilience rit­u­als (from chap­ter 3, Your Oxy­gen Mask First). When he takes care of him­self – includ­ing dai­ly exer­cise, jour­nal­ing and medi­a­tion – he’s more con­sis­tent­ly his best self, more ground­ed and more like­ly to keep his ego in check.

He also noticed that when he gets busy and his rou­tine slips, he’s less effec­tive and his ego gets more in the way.

Get­ting Out of the Way = Alignment

This broth­er and sis­ter team, who have tak­en over their fam­i­ly busi­ness know that well. In this con­ver­sa­tion, they talk about how their abil­i­ty to get out of their own way made a mas­sive dif­fer­ence to get of the same page.

Rec­og­niz­ing that ego was get­ting in the way of being aligned, they became more open mind­ed and lis­tened to each oth­er. Instead of just shar­ing opin­ions and advice, they lead with curi­ous ques­tions to under­stand each oth­er bet­ter and to get to the essence of what the oth­er is saying.

A Path Forward

The hap­pi­est, most suc­cess­ful peo­ple I know, who have the dri­ve to do great work and make a pos­i­tive impact, con­tin­ue to do a lot of work on this area.

They know that their dark side doesn’t bring out their best, most effec­tive selves.

And, every once in a while, it ris­es up to remind them that they’re human.

The Chal­lenge

• In sit­u­a­tions do you find your ego gets in the way or makes things hard­er than they need to be?
• What might you do, then, to qui­et your dark side and be more at your best?
• Con­sid­er doing the exer­cise in Chap­ter 6 of Your Oxy­gen Mask First.

Oth­er Blogs

• Dou­ble Your Per­son­al Resilience
• Are You Get­ting Sev­en Kinds of Rest?
• What Makes You Happy?
• Man­ag­ing Emo­tions and Deal­ing with Your Emo­tion­al Junk

Old­er Podcasts

• How Do You Become a Lev­el 5 Leader?
• Exec­u­tive Burnout: Rebuild­ing Your Resilience