I recently listened to a CD audio book titled Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box by the Arbinger Institute. Preview the book here.

This book fundamentally changed the way I see my relationships and the world. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to gain a new perspective on things and enhance their interpersonal skills.

The extent to which self-deception is the central issue in leadership is the subject of the book.

For example:
As a leader, if your self-deception is that you believe that you know everything, you’re highly unlikely to accept new ideas from others. Furthermore, you will continually work to justify your position that you know everything. This means that you will invite the failure of others because their failure further justifies your position as a know-it-all.

Here’s the kicker – you’re not aware of your self-deception. You’ve probably had it for years. Your view of things is skewed and you have no idea that YOU’RE the problem.

Consider the following analogy from the book:

An infant is learning to crawl. She begins by pushing herself backward around the house.

Backing herself around, she gets lodged beneath the furniture. There she thrashes about; crying and banging her little head against the sides and undersides of the pieces.

She is stuck and hates it, so she does the only thing she can think of to get herself out.

She pushes even harder, which only worsens her problem. She’s more stuck than ever.

If this infant could talk, she would blame the furniture for her troubles. She, after all, is doing everything she can think of.

The problem couldn’t be hers.

But of course the problem IS hers, even though she can’t see it.

While it’s true she’s doing everything she can think of, the problem is precisely that she can’t see how SHE’S the problem.

Having the problem she has, nothing she can think of will be the solution.

Like this, self-deception blinds us to the true cause of problems. Once we’re blinded, all the solutions we can think of will actually make matters worse.

This is why self-deception is so important to leadership.

Leadership is about making matters better.

“To the extent that we are self-deceived, our leadership is undermined at every turn. And NOT because of the furniture.”

This book offers more than just the problem; it offers a solution to self-deception as well.