1: There was once a woman in Russia who dreamed of becoming a ballerina.
“She practiced hard and eventually wound up taking workshops with renowned masters,” Fred Kofman writes in The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership.
One day, she asked one of the teachers what he thought of her technique. He replied brusquely that she didn’t have what it took to be a star.
“The news crushed her,” Fred writes. “She gave up her dream and became a choreographer instead.”
Many years passed. One day, she saw the teacher who had made the comments. She shared that she had given up dancing because of his remarks.
“Oh,” he said nonchalantly, “I say that to everyone. The dancers that have what it takes don’t pay attention to me.”
2: Fred writes: “Like the ballerina, our ego stands between us and what it takes to become a transcendent leader. The brittle, self-doubting and always-ready-to-quit part of ourselves cannot withstand anything less than perfection. It would rather be great at mediocrity than to strive for greatness.”
Ego is the part of our psyche that is constantly focused on our self-worth and status, Shayne Hughes and Brandon Black write in their book Ego Free Leadership: Ending the Unconscious Habits That Hijack Your Business.
Ego repeatedly asks, “Do I look competent, smart, attractive, powerful, right, good, in control? Am I respected, admired, liked, appreciated, envied, revered?”
“When the answer is yes,” Fred writes, “it feels pride and peace; when the answer is no, it feels shame and anxiety.”
When our ego is in control, we want “endless acknowledgment, recognition, and success,” he notes. “Under its spell, each of us yearns to be the best, the smart one, the hero. We want others to need us, to look up to us, to follow us.
“When we know the answer or deliver the impossible, we feel worthy, powerful, superior; we glow with pride. Our brain is on fire with dopamine flooding our pleasure centers, just like a drug.”
And what’s wrong with this?
Ego “creates constant performance anxiety because the rush of success is short-lived and the chance of failure is ever present,” Fred explains. “Even the slightest underperformance activates its fear of not being good enough. No amount of praise satisfies ego’s endless hunger for reassurance.”
Our egos crave power over others. It tells us we will only be worthy when we are on top.
Ego is competitive: “It’s always comparing us to those around,” he notes, “trying to increase our status by making us overvalue ourselves and undervalue others. . .
“It considers colleagues as potential threats—if they look better, we fear we look worse in comparison. Consequently, it prioritizes our individual success over the team’s mission–especially when measured by individual performance indicators.
Ego’s insatiable need for acknowledgment causes us to knock others down. Consequently, when we lead from our ego, we miss opportunities to connect and collaborate. “It’s impossible to truly understand and support our employees and our customers if we’re self-absorbed.”
3: These behaviors become our default setting because of the lessons we learn while growing up.
“We develop automatic routines to deal with our anxiety about self-worth at the outset of our life,” Fred explains. “As children, these defensive routines protect us from painful feelings of hurt, fear, embarrassment, and guilt.
“If we touch a hot stove, our pain quickly teaches us not to do it again. The same goes for emotional pain; when we experience it, we draw conclusions about what caused it and how to avoid it in the future.”
As we mature, our defensiveness provides us with what psychologists call “secondary gains.”
“For example,” Fred writes, “by avoiding a difficult conversation with a low-performing employee, we make it impossible to address the root of the problem; we also accumulate resentment toward him that generally ends in a blowup. But because we fear being disliked and judged as a mean boss, we save our ego from the anxiety of confronting him.”
We learn the wrong lesson. “The problem is that our experience of ego-pain is always ambiguous,” Fred observes. “Its lessons are never clear.”
He shares Aesop’s fable about a donkey walking along a path carrying heavy sacks of salt and falling into a river.
“The salt dissolved in the water, and the donkey came out feeling as light as a feather. The next time it traveled the path, the donkey jumped into the river to lighten its load. But this time, the sacks were full of sponges, and the donkey drowned.
“Like the donkey,” he notes, “our egos learn the wrong lessons early in life and draw self-limiting conclusions.”
There is reason for hope, however. We can escape the grip of ego by doing the necessary personal development work.
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: How can I recognize when my ego is holding me back and shift my focus toward meaningful growth and collaboration?
Action: Challenge self-limiting beliefs rooted in ego and embrace opportunities for personal development to better connect and lead with purpose.