Rethinking leadership: The cost of ego in the boardroom
A well-meaning employee gathers the courage to disagree with the leader on a decision that will impact the morale of the employees. The boss feels offended, dismisses the unwelcome dissent, defends the decision and berates the employee. “How dare this person disagree with me?” is the message everyone in the room gets.
This is a scenario that happens too often in the workplace—family businesses, founder-owned and-led companies and even some multinational companies. People usually define leaders like this to have a “ fragile ego.”
Let’s break down the thinking errors this leader is committing that are causing a toxic culture where people cannot disagree, where only the one with authority is right and the millions that this could be costing the company.
The term ego is a neutral term to mean the rational part of our mind that creates our sense of self. A person could have a healthy ego or sense of self or an unhealthy one. In modern day, it’s usually used to refer to low self-esteem, defensiveness and insecurity.
“Not all ‘thinking’ is actually thinking”, L. Michael Hall writes in his book “Brain Camp: Thinking for Humans.” Let’s breakdown the “nonthinking” processes that the leader must have been through to have the reaction that they did.
1. Reactivity
When someone says something and it triggers a response instantly, we’re not thinking. We are reacting faster than we can think.
This is a reaction, not to the situation at hand, but to the meanings that we associate with what is happening.
In our example, the leader probably associated being disagreed with being disrespected and being judged as a bad leader. These two concepts attached to dissent have nothing to do with the employee and the opinion expressed, but with the interpretation made by the leader prior to the event.
2. Automatic thinking
When we have an overlearned information that we assume to be factual and accurate without the need for data, we have a script. Just because we have thought about something a certain way for a long time does not make it any more right than what others think.
If we think that we are infallible and we cannot consider someone else’s thought that is different from ours, we are not thinking.
In our example, the leader seems to think that they’re right, and everyone else is wrong.
3. Confident thinking
When we are confident about how we think, we are sure and certain; we have stopped thinking. The Dunning-Kruger effect, described as people who lack metacognitive ability don’t recognize their own incompetence, is at play here. Confidence should equate to our level of skills, expertise and knowledge. If we just feel confident, this could be false confidence. The leader in our example seems to have this false confidence and would therefore not consider a different opinion.
4. Authority bias
Authority bias is the tendency to attribute greater accuracy, credibility or correctness to the opinion of an authority figure—and to be more influenced by that opinion—regardless of the actual evidence.
The leader assumes the authority means knowing more. This is actually rarer, especially if the leader is not on the ground most of the time and doesn’t work in depth with the different departments.
The boss who assumes that just because he has authority, means they know more is not thinking.
What’s the cost of a leader who needs to be right?
1. Lose intelligent people
There’s nothing more demeaning or boring to intelligent people than to forbid them to think and speak up. These are the people who are hard to find and hire, and once they realize they will just follow orders with no questions asked, they get demotivated.
These are also usually the ones who’d easily find another (better) employer who’d give them more autonomy and trust.
2. Keep those who don’t have a choice
The other side is the ones who neither care enough nor have the courage to speak up. They stay not because they want to, but because they don’t have a choice.
They probably won’t contribute much.
3. The capability of the team becomes limited
Since no one will step up, dare to be creative and have a different opinion, the organization will rely on the leader for everything—either because they don’t have other opinions, or because they’re afraid to have one.
4. Misdiagnosed problems
When the environment created is one of fear and people needing to protect another’s self-worth, everyone will be walking on eggshells. They will hide the truth because they know they will be punished otherwise.
This will increase the chances of making mistakes over and over again, and that’s gonna cost the company.
Wrong decisions
Because the whole picture will not be clear, wrong decisions about strategies, market and employees are bound to be made.
And how much can that cost a company? Whether it’s a missed opportunity or a wrong strategy, the answer is a lot.
The cost of a leader not working on their self-esteem issues and not learning to think correctly could be potentially high. Would you want this for yourself?
(Sheila T. Tan is an executive coach and an organizational development consultant. She holds a Master’s degree in Organizational Development. Reach through coachsheila.tan@gmail.com.)
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