Leadership and Self-Deception

I was recommend a book called “Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box” by The Arbinger Institute.

This is an excellent book, it shows how by focusing on our selves and treating people as objects rather than as people we can deceive ourselves and create a distorted reality where we blame others for problems we have created,or for situations we find ourselves in.

It also shows that by our consequent behavior towards them where we try to fix their problem we actually increase the problem making the situation worse.

We need to always treat people as people and consider their needs in order to better to understand their motivations and create a more accurate reality on which to base our actions.

When I started to read I found myself understanding some difficult relationships I have had, both professional and personal, and could see how I had contributed to the difficulty, whereas before I would have laid 100% of the blame at the feet of the other person.

One of the challenges is that we often don’t see where the real problems lies and if we cannot see the problem how can we fix it?

Not only does the book give us some very useful insights into personal relationships, it also gives some great tips on how to spot when we are in blame mode and how to deactivate it.

This I an excellent book and i would fully recommend it, not only will it help you at work, but more importantly at home. I know it will definitely help me, I might not be able to fix all the problems but I will have the tools to spot my contribution and how to minimize it.