Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps

by Jennifer Garvey Berger

  Jamie Holmes tells us: “We create a sharp division between our present, fixed self, and our past, evolving selves. We always think we’ve settled into ourselves, and we’re always wrong. The most interesting finding is that at every age, we feel like we’re done with our own evolution.”3

  I think it’s really important to notice that we’re wired to (wrongly) believe that our big changes are behind us. Because so many of us don’t think of ourselves as growing and changing into the future, we invest our energy into protecting the person we have become rather than growing into the person we might become next.

  We protect and defend the identity we have rather than open to new possibilities

  Protecting the person we have become turns out to be a nearly full-time job. An enormous amount of hidden energy goes into protecting ourselves from evidence that our beliefs are wrong, that we are needing to show our worth, to receive love from others, or to prove that we’re the smartest ones in the room. Bob Kegan and Lisa Lahey write about this phenomenon: “In an ordinary organization, most people are doing a second job no one is paying them for. In businesses large and small; in government agencies, schools, and hospitals; in for-profits and non-profits, and in any country in the world, most people are spending time and energy covering up their weaknesses, managing other people’s impressions of them, showing themselves to their best advantage, playing politics, hiding their inadequacies, hiding their uncertainties, hiding their limitations. Hiding.”4

  And a part of the trick is that we hide this effort from ourselves, too. We’re mostly not aware when we’re protecting and defending our ego. Instead, we tend to think we’re “standing up for ourselves” or “doing what it takes” or any other self-justification technique we might offer. We might notice it with the sweating of our palms when someone challenges us about something we feel we should have prepared for. Then we might blame the other person (“That guy was a jerk for embarrassing me in public this morning!”), or we might turn our wrath on ourselves (“Geez, I’m such a screw-up! I never prepare as I should!”). We might notice it when we have an argument over something really stupid and meaningless (“You never throw away the moldy leftovers! You expect me to be your servant!”) that we somehow can’t stop ourselves from escalating (“And that’s how I know you’re the wrong person for me to spend the rest of my life with!”). We might notice it when we, like Alison, rely on our clothes or our car or our house to carry the impression we most want to make (“We can’t drive up to the meeting in that car—the investors will know we’re struggling to make it and won’t think we’re a good risk”). Really, though, what we are often doing is fighting against our weaknesses, our unknowing, our confusion, our shame. The energy that fight takes is enormous. Kegan and Lahey call it the “single biggest loss of resources that organizations suffer every day.” And even worse, as we win that fight, we lose sight of the developmental path that is just on the edge of our defences.

  We don’t have a sense of the patterns of our life

  The problem is, we tend not to have a sense of the way the elements of our lives shape into a beautiful and helpful pattern. In the absence of a map that tells us where we have been and where we might get to next, we figure wherever we are is the last stop on the road and we need to defend the patch of land we happen to inhabit right now. We believe a little polish here or a new skill there will fix what ails us. A middle manager with a “confidence problem” is sent to an image consultant to buy better clothes and learn how to stand up straight. An executive who struggles to be promoted to the most senior positions because of his trouble connecting heart-to-heart in his speeches is sent to a voice coach and told to watch movies with strong yet connected male characters. A stay-at-home mother who feels lost when the last of her kids heads off to college is given a gift certificate to a barista class.

  Each of these treats the symptom of the issue rather than the underlying cause. The symptom is how we show up; the cause might be how we make sense of the world and our place in it. Theories of adult development offer us a new possibility to make sense of who we are and who we are becoming.5

  These theories tell us that our time on the planet doesn’t just change our physical shape; it also changes our emotional and mental shape—what I think of as our “forms of mind.” Just as a baby becomes more able to handle the complexities of her life when she learns to walk and talk, and a young child becomes more able to handle the complexities of his life when he learns to read, so too do our new ways of being in the world shape our ability to handle the complexities in our life. Unlike our early changes, though, our adult changes tend not to show up with new skills or a new physical growth spurt. Generally, you can see them most easily when you get really interested not just in what someone knows but in how he makes sense of what he knows.

  For example, early in our adult lives we rely on outside perspectives to tell us how we are doing—what is right and wrong, what is successful, what is valuable. This outside perspective can come from a set of relationships (with your family, your friends, your colleagues at work or in a religious institution) or from a set of principles or expertise (from your training or your professional experience). In each case, the truth about us tends to come from outside us, from our social surround, which is why we call this the socialized form of mind.

  This socialized form of mind has been a great help to humans throughout our history. It creates the glue in societies and helps us learn from one another and follow common rules—not because we are forced to but because in our socialized form of mind we internalize those rules as the right way to be. Here people are mostly creating and defending the identity that others give to them; we need to make other people feel good about us to feel good about ourselves. You can see that in a simpler world, where there were guides who could tell us what was right or wrong, where professions and sets of expertise stayed fairly constant across a person’s life span, there was little reason to grow beyond this form of mind. And even in the complex world people are faced with today, many people stay with the socialized form of mind for the rest of their lives.

  Others, though, when faced with the confusing complexity of different opinions and pressures and professions, come to understand the limits of a view that is looking outward. Those people keep the voices they once internalized within a socialized mind, but over years or even decades of development they add a kind of “chief deciding voice” to the crowd—their own voice, that is. We call this the self-authored form of mind because now we do not want to be written by our circumstances; we figure out how to pick up the pen to write our own story. We no longer turn outside ourselves for direction on what’s right and wrong, good and bad, but bring the compass inside as we cobble together our own set of values and beliefs by which to make our own decisions. This doesn’t mean that we no longer care about the opinions of others or of our society or our professions, but when those opinions clash it is not a crisis of self for us; it is a tricky set of decisions to make, but we have the self-authored form of mind to write those decisions for ourselves.

  In the self-authored form of mind, the identity we protect and defend is the internal operating system we have assembled for ourselves—our values and systems of belief. This protection might cause us to slip into righteous certainty because we are more oriented to the worth of our own judgments than the ideas and perspectives of others. Eventually, this internal operating system, which was such a gift when we first developed it, can turn into a liability. Ultimately, in an uncertain and complex world, we might find that the effort we put into protecting our beliefs and values is not worth all the calories, and that it prevents our learning and holding multiple perspectives about the world. Our beliefs and values are obviously of key importance, but they don’t play out on an empty stage. They are always shaped by what is asked of us and by what our circumstances require.

  This is why some people find that the complexity of the world is still too great for this self-authored mind to handle. They see
that they are not the sole writers of their lives, as if their lives took place on a blank page. Instead, they see themselves as both the writer and the written. They have some control over their lives, but they do not have total control; they are jazz musicians riffing along with others rather than believing life can be rehearsed and perfected. We call this co-constructed and emergent form of mind the self-transforming form of mind because people with this form of mind are always searching for the next thing that might challenge a deeply held belief system. They spend less time creating and defending a particular version of themselves and more time letting life transform them.

  Knowing that these different mind forms exist (and sensing the many, many steps between each of these phases that incorporate multiple forms of mind simultaneously) can help us make sense of some of our inevitable challenges. Are you aware that you used to rely more on the perspectives of others and are now worried that you’re becoming a little arrogant? That’s likely part of a necessary developmental transition from the socialized to the self-authored form of mind. Notice that you used to feel more certain and now suddenly you see many more shades of gray—even about your own values, which you have held so dear? That’s likely an emerging chapter as you develop from the self-authored to the more self-transforming form of mind. Remembering that we are always on a developmental path helps us walk into the future with more grace.

  Bill cleared his throat and stacked his papers again, clearly trying to settle himself after Alison’s initial explanation. “I hate to sound difficult, Alison,” he said, “but this seems like a different strategy than we expected, and quite a different strategy than we signed on to just a couple of months ago.”

  It was basically what Alison had expected. She found her chest tightening and her hands sweating, as was usual in these situations, and her whole body urged her to protect herself. She remembered her promise to herself this morning, though, and rubbed her sweaty hands on her soft, comfortable pants.

  Instead of defending herself and explaining why he was wrong, Alison let down her armor. “You’re totally right, Bill. This really is a new approach. And to be honest, I’m worried about it too. As you know, I’m passionate about creating really big change here at AN&M. I believe that together we can invent the future of accounting services while helping our clients achieve their dreams, and without harming the world. That’s always been my vision.”

  “That’s our vision too, Alison—that’s why we hired you in the first place. Doesn’t it seem like this is a backing-off of that vision?”

  “I understand how it looks to you all,” Alison said, addressing the board as a whole. “You hired me to be bold and to really shake things up, and now it looks like I’ve lost my nerve. It’s funny—from my perspective it would have been easier to just plow ahead with the old plan. It’s this change that’s taking me quite a lot of nerve, actually.”

  “What do you mean?” Bill asked.

  “Well, I was convinced—as you were—that this massive change needed a wholesale shift in what we do and how we do it. And I believed that the best way to get that shift was to give things a big shake and disrupt things. But as you know, I’ve been talking to all the partners, one by one. Actually—really what I’ve been doing is listening to all the partners, one by one. And I’ve been thinking about the whole system here and not just the endgame where we want to arrive.

  She took a deep breath to settle herself, and continued. “It turns out there are some incredibly innovative things happening already here; it’s just that there’s no place for people to talk about them. Before I barrel in and try to force my own innovation, I want to make space for the innovations that are already emerging to become more infectious.”

  The board members nodded tentatively. That sounded reasonable.

  “And I also realized that there were people interested in innovating who were wrestling with small frustrations in our standardized systems that made it hard for them to try a new thing,” Alison explained. “So I thought that I would release some of those constraints for a short time and see what happened then.”

  The board members nodded again, understanding better what she was talking about.

  “These ideas weren’t mine, mind you,” Alison added. “They were compilations of ideas that came from some of our newest, most experimental partners as well as some of our oldest and, you might expect, most change-resistant ones. It turns out, they’re not really resistant to change. Everyone at the whole firm knows we need to be different. They’re just resistant to me imposing my view of change on them. They want to have a hand in creating it.”

  Bill was nodding broadly now. “Okay, so when you said you wanted to pull back from the significant culture-change effort we have been planning to launch, you were meaning so that you could do these smaller experimental shifts?” Alison nodded. Bill continued, “That makes sense to me, but wouldn’t it be better to do both at once? Why forgo the big change for all of these little ones?”

  Alison smiled. “It’s a bet, for sure. I’m not sure that I’m right. I can only tell you the way I have been thinking about it and hear how you all are thinking about it and see if together we can decide on the best way forward.”

  “Okay, that’s totally fair,” Bill acknowledged. “Why don’t you walk us through your thought process.”

  KEYS TO UNLOCK OUR EGO-PROTECTION TRAP

  If our default is to defend and protect who we have been rather than reaching and growing toward who we could become, what do we do about that? We see the possible pathway of growth, but that doesn’t make it effortless to follow it. Believing that people can change, dramatically, over the course of their lives can be both helpful and daunting. Believing people are more beautiful and connected when they are vulnerable is easy to say and hard to actually act upon. But there are moves you can make and questions you can ask that will help you escape from this trickiest of mindtraps.

  Key question: Who do I want to be next?

  One way we get in our own way is believing that an idea or a value or a hope arises out of who we are, and who we have always been. If Alison saw herself as someone who always wore her armor—that’s just who she was—she couldn’t have approached the board meeting in this new way. It would have been too un-Alison to do that.6

  But if Alison has a story about herself that that is who she has been “up until now” and an eye on the person she wants to be next, she will give herself much more room to explore and invent the next version of herself. Whenever a leader tells me, “I’m just not that person who is inspiring at the front of the room,” I hear his footsteps walking away from that possibility. Whenever a college student tells me she has never been good at math, I see a shrug and the solidifying of an old belief system, which no longer serves her.

  Notice the difference between “I’m just not that person who is inspiring at the front of the room” and “Up until now, I just haven’t been that person who is inspiring at the front of the room.” The first one means you can just go home. The second means that you’re headed toward another possibility and that perhaps someday, in the not-so-distant future, you’ll be that person who is inspiring at the front of the room.

  Lien had struggled her whole career with issues of self-confidence, and people were always telling her to believe more in herself or to show up more assertively with her ideas. She tended to reflexively answer, “That’s just not who I am,” which left her feeling demoralized and stuck. When she started saying, “That’s just not who I am yet, but I’m working on it,” even that breath of air was the motion she needed to begin to move more easily in her own skin. Asking ourselves and others to think about who we will be next keeps us from falling into the trap of believing we have arrived, and that keeps us living in a world of possibilities instead of creating and defending the current reality.

  Key move: Listen to learn from yourself

  Now that you are asking yourself about the person you will become, the next move is to look at the way you are m
aking sense of the world. This, in many ways, is like “listening to learn” from others, except you’re turning that curiosity onto yourself and getting more curious about how you’re making sense of the world. This isn’t about why you believe what you believe (so you’re not trying to perfect your self-justification); it’s about how you see the world in such a way that your current perspective is the one that arises for you.

  This helps you find your own place on the developmental map, which has the advantage of both understanding yourself better and also beginning to discover where you might grow next. When you find yourself frustrated and confused—as Alison was, sitting on her closet floor—you can get a little distance from that frustration and wonder what is really going on. Key questions you can ask yourself are

  • What is at stake for me here?

  • What is the hardest part about this?

  • What is the best part about this?

  • How do I know this is true?

  The trick isn’t to ask the question just once (that tends to get at justification) but to ask it at least three times. For Alison, it might look like this:

  “Geez—I’m so upset about this outfit. There really must be something else going on. What’s at risk for me?”

  She might answer herself: “If I don’t look the part, they won’t take me seriously!”

  Then she needs to ask the question again: “And what would be at risk for me if they didn’t take me seriously?” Just as with listening to learn, we have to be open and curious with ourselves, not critical or trying to teach ourselves a lesson.

  She might answer herself: “If they didn’t take me seriously, I might not take myself seriously. And if I didn’t take myself seriously, I might lose my nerve and scuttle the whole plan so that I wouldn’t have to go out on a limb all by myself. I guess I’m afraid that I’m really not committed to this plan enough to carry it out without their support.”