Fundamentals of Level Three Leadership

22. Leadership and Self-Deception

Concept

In 2000, the Arbinger Institute published a very interesting book, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box (Berrett-Kohler, San Franciso), about how people often ignore their conscience and judge others, putting them in a box, a negative label or group of labels—perhaps a stereotype. The premise was that people have a set of feelings about what is the right thing to do (essentially a conscience) and that they often ignore those feelings in order to satisfy their own self-esteem and comfort. The consequence of this behavior is that we put others in boxes and others put us in boxes that erode or destroy our relationships. And that we do this to justify our own behavior. Only, they argue, when ...