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Please leave your comments below, and feel free to answer this question: Have you seen a situation like Dr. Semmelweis faced in current times, and did the leader get stuck in the box or get out?
Thanks!
Posted on December 23rd, 2009 by David
Filed under: Flash movies
I think Alan Greenspan, the former U.S Federal Reserve Chairman, got stuck in the leadership box by assuming that the highly deregulated financial markets, which included complex mortgage-backed derivatives that few understood, would self correct through efficient marketplace dynamics. Unfortunately, it did not work out that way. He could have applied the brakes earlier even though it would have caused an uproar on Wall Street.
As a manager at a company I worked for many years ago, I was caught in the box of self-deception. In my mind, I thought I was a great manager and led my team with conviction and passion. However, as I discovered later, not many people on my team viewed me that way. They felt I was arrogant, impatient, demanding, and selfish. While we did get things done, I was told later by one of the members of that team that they would have been willing to do so much more with me / for me / for the company if I had been more responsive to their concerns, their ideas, their needs. Having now read the book Leadership & Self-Deception several times, I have the perspective to see just how bad I was as a manager. Like Semmelweis, I lament the negative effects that my self-deception had on the people I worked with. While it is an ongoing effort to practice them, I am grateful for the concepts this book has introduced to me and have felt the benefits of working “out of the box” in many aspects of my life.
Leadership & Self-Deception is at the top of my reading list for 2010! The example of the problem faced by Dr. Semmelweis really makes clear the danger of self-deception and being inside of the box, but I’m eager to see how it applies to my personal and professional lives. Going to start this new decade off right!
I hear and ditto the lament I feel because of the negativity I brought to an organization that could have offered so much more had I only known about my own Self-Deception. I truly was blind and my blindness blamed others.
This was an organization to help brain-damaged children. I so was bent on ‘my way’ of doing things as the ‘right way’, that it usurped so much of the groups energies just dealing with me and my righteousness. I can’t even imagine the amount of fatique and struggle I added to others in the group when they were already faced with so much having a brain-damaged child themselves.
I thank Arbinger for making it so understandable what my impact delivers in relationships and organizations. Leadership and Self-Deception is a must read and a great place to start to see and work more clearly.
Several years ago, on a long road trip with my life partner, we listened to a CD version of Leadership and Self-Deception. The conflicts in the story had striking similarities to difficulties in our family. I sometimes think that book was the only way we could confront our own roles in the troubles we were having.
I’m grateful to a trusted friend who recommended the book to us. It’s made a world of difference. Difficult times come and we still need to work toward solutions together, but I feel like Leadership and Self-Deception gave us tools to use.
The Semmelweis story reminds me that the first place I need to look is at my own hands.
The shockingly simple (and new to me) ideas in this humble book helped me stop unknowingly inviting and causing the very management problems that burdened me. Once I learned how to stop deceiving myself and preventing change, everything and everyone changed for the better. It literally happened overnight.
Almost every day, I meet people whose perspectives have changed significantly through reading Leadership and Self-Deception. They join Arbinger’s online forum to continue to explore what had seemed hidden before — the underlying “disease” of self-deception that had been manifesting itself in their businesses, families and communities as tension, reluctance, disloyalty, resentment, broken lines of communication, misunderstandings, inertia, offended feelings and more. Recognizing the condition of self-deception has been a moving force for positive, deep change for these people and thousands of others.
Please join us at Arbinger Community to read stories of change, exchange experiences and insights, and learn more about Arbinger ideas. It’s easy to use and free: http://www.arbingercommunity.ning.com.
You’re welcome to stop by my page on the site. I’d be happy to help answer any questions you may have.
Heather Burton
Arbinger Community Team
This remarkable book has allowed me to continually look at my life and reflect on something of profound significance. As a manager, results and accountability have new meaning. As a son and husband, family life has lasting hope for peace and happiness. As a stranger in community, the word “people” creates a bond of connectedness. Arbingers work shows me how, just like Semmelweis, my self-deceptions cause problems (and conflict) all around me. Most importantly, it gives me the equipment to get out of those self-deceptions. It does not matter your religion or creed, culture or social upbringing… this material speaks to all of humanity.
I just completed reading Leadership and Self Deception and I found it to be illuminating. No question I have been “in the box.” Being made aware of this has been eye opening and, as someone else said, humbling. I plan on reading “The Anatomy of Peace” as well. Ironically, shortly after finishing the book, found myself in a situation where I should have done something but didn’t. I was “called” on it. Instead of getting defensive (which I would have), I was receptive to the warranted chastising, acknowledged my error and apologized.
The book has had a profound effect on my interactions with my colleagues, family and friends. I would also recommend The Anatomy of Peace as well as this helps to understand the message from a different perspective. There really is no one I can think of that would not benefit from reading and pondering these books.
I think I always carried the leadership “germ” unconsciously and, sometimes, consciously. I thought, then, that is the way life is. Today, years later, after having read the book, Leadership and Self-Deception, several time and ingested the principles and the truths in it, I live a life which consistently and consciously works at self-purification.
These are principles to live by! Great work. I am looking forward to the 3rd book. What is the hold up?! As a Director of one of the few leadership schools in Central Asia, I can tell you that we have our work cut out for us…so keep producing such profound and highly readable material.
There are all kinds of leadership that we can be challenged by, whether as a manager, leadership of a volunteer or church responsibility, or in our own homes. I have at times been in all these positions, and never knew why I found them so stressful and difficult. When I encountered Arbinger principles eight years ago, I was changed dramatically and so was my experience of the world and people around me. (And hopefully their experience of me was changed for the better also). Whether at work, at home, or at church, I am more effective and more peaceful in proportion to how ‘out of the box’ I can be with others and with situations. I am so grateful for this.
Isn’t it so very interesting that one need only to recognize #1 that a situation exists that needs fixing and #2 that we have all the answers if we will but acknowledge that we have a part to play in the solution. “Ask and ye shall receive” and answers come. The accomplishments that are coming and will be coming from this Arbinger Community because of these principles will be life changing…indeed world changing! Of this I am sure. I am very grateful to be a part of this learning curve and this great organization. A BIG thank you to everyone who is making this available to all of us, the books to read, the lectures and retreats to attend, the emails to open, the phone conference calls to listen, and the list goes on and on and on. I feel such a sense of gratefulness.
I may be off base (please tell me if you think so) but one of the most usefule things I mentally tell myself at the beginning of every day, and then several times during the day, is “Relax! Do not react until you have mentally thought through your reaction and are sure that you are reacting in a way that helps improve the discussion, is constructive, and in a manner that other people will be able to accept.” Even if I only get as far as RELAX – HOLD YOUR FIRE – LISTEN – THINK – THEN RESPOND, I find I am (I think) much more effective. The world is not going to come to an end because I don’t spring into action every moment of every day. If I wait until I’m sure I have a reasonable grasp of the situation, the human dynamics, how critical the issue is, I believe my contributions and leadership are much more effective and accepted.