Ego is a funny thing that sneaks in our subconscious and slowly, but surely, takes over. It makes us do things that at times, we, ourselves, start to wonder what on Earth possessed us to do that … oh, well, the answer is quite simple, our Ego.
I hear a lot of conversations that there’s a good and a bad ego. I personally haven’t yet come across a situation where the outcome of a decision based on the ego was positive for neither of the people involved. Even though in the moment it might feel like a positive one, later on things change. I believe there’s only bad ego and that’s what I’m basing my approach on. The ego’s role is to keep your fears active and to hold you captive in a pattern of behaviours that hold your progress back. We have established by now that when acting from fear there cannot be any progress for the self and no way of supporting the progress of others.
One of my clients, a very intelligent and successful professional, called me one evening in panic that her immediate boss hasn’t replied to her emails the last few days, an atypical behaviour for him. They have just had a regional meeting discussing the results of the year and the strategies for the next year, where she had outstanding evaluations and feedback. After the meeting, she was also told that the boss wanted to pay her a visit, in her country to further discuss certain things. She told me about all of this in our latest session and we agreed that it seemed like she was going to be asked to take on a larger role, most probably more regional and she was quite excited about the possibility.
But her call was one of anguish and panic and stress. It was a distress call and she went into a whirlwind of negative emotions and self-doubt. Although rationally, consciously, she knew there were no reasons for her panic, she was still very triggered and all of the bad experiences she had with her former bosses were flooding her mind. She worked on where all of that fear was coming from, identified the cause and she calmed down. That night she also received an email from her boss and the reasoning for his silence: a dear one had fallen ill. Nothing to do with her, no reason for her to worry and even less to panic and feel threatened.
It was her Ego. Her Ego playing with her insecurities and firing up her fears. That’s all it was. Thankfully, she is very committed to her progress and she noticed very quickly the negative emotions and acted. She understood that there’s more digging to be done until the core cause is revealed, but she’s one step closer to releasing her substance from the blinding grip of her ego, which is her true value, the one that she can trust and rely upon to continuously grow.
Substance is knowledge, experience, expertise, trust in self, awareness of self-worth, confidence, curiosity and everything else in between. When you act from substance, you are authentic, trustworthy and inspiring. There’s no wishy-washy in substance.
A leader’s strongest enemy is ego. Ego is at the core of control and command behaviour and feeds one’s false sense of power. Ego separates inspiring leaders from professionals in leading roles. By removing the influence of the ego, you become reflective and intuitive, aware of how your words and behaviours affect others. Not only will you enjoy leading, but you will also enjoy seeing others succeed.
