Author:Arbinger Institute Binding: Paperback Published: 2010-01-05 ISBN: 1576759776 Availability:
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ISBN13: 9781576759776
Condition: New
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Since it's original publication nine years ago, Leadership and Self-Deception has become an international word-of-mouth phenomenon. Rather than tapering off, it has sold more copies each year since 2004 than it did in any of the first four years after publication. The book's central insight--that the key to leadership lays not in what we do, but in who we are--has proved to have powerful resonances not only for organizational leadership, but in readers' personal lives as well. Leadership and Self-Deception uses an entertaining story about an executive facing challenges at work and at home to expose the precise psychological processes that conceal our true motivations and intentions from us and trap us in a "box" of endless self-justification. Most importantly, the book shows us the way out. This new edition has been revised throughout to make the story more readable and compelling. And drawing on the extensive correspondence they're received over the years the authors have added a section that outlines the many ways that readers have been using Leadership and Self-Deception, focusing on five specific areas: hiring, teambuilding, conflict resolution, accountability, and personal growth and development.
Using the story/parable format so popular these days, Leadership and Self-Deception takes a novel psychological approach to leadership. It's not what you do that matters, say the authors (presumably plural--the book is credited to the esteemed Arbinger Institute), but why you do it. Latching onto the latest leadership trend won't make people follow you if your motives are selfish--people can smell a rat, even one that says it's trying to empower them. The tricky thing is, we don't know that our motivation is flawed. We deceive ourselves in subtle ways into thinking that we're doing the right thing for the right reason. We really do know what the right thing to do is, but this constant self-justification becomes such an ingrained habit that it's hard to break free of it--it's as though we're trapped in a box, the authors say.
Learning how the process of self-deception works--and how to avoid it and stay in touch with our innate sense of what's right--is at the heart of the book. We follow Tom, an old-school, by-the-book kind of guy who is a newly hired executive at Zagrum Corporation, as two senior executives show him the many ways he's "in the box," how that limits him as a leader in ways he's not aware of, and of course how to get out. This is as much a book about personal transformation as it is about leadership per se. The authors use examples from the characters' private as well as professional lives to show how self-deception skews our view of ourselves and the world and ruins our interactions with people, despite what we sincerely believe are our best intentions.
While the writing won't make John Updike lose any sleep, the story entertainingly does the job of pulling the reader in and making a potentially abstruse argument quite enjoyable. The authors have a much better ear for dialogue than is typical of the genre (the book is largely dialogue), although a certain didactic tone creeps in now and then. But ultimately it's a hopeful, even inspiring read that flows along nicely and conveys a message that more than a few managers need to hear. --Pat McGill
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Paradigm Shift:
After reading Leadership and Self-Deception, it gave me a better understanding why I perceive others the way I do. The book is a narrative story explaining how a man discovered ways he has been self-deceived, and the results that follow his self-deception. The process of this self-deception begins first with ignoring a prompting to serve another by treating them with respect and dignity. This first step is called self-betrayal. After self-betrayal, one seeks to justify his or her action of... more info
Leadership and Self Deception:
I am looking to go deep in ministering to women via a small-group ministry. I have cleaned up my own act years ago, but can always use more refining. This tool is just what the doctor ordered. I loved the angle that the author came at the the audience. It truly hit home for me and I will value it in my reference library in future days. Many thanks!
Felt kind of manipulated reading it:
I bought Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box and The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict because I'll be starting a program in conflict resolution in a few months and I wanted to become more familiar with some of the basic concepts before I started. So far, I've only read Leadership and Self-Deception. I bought the two books because they are popular and were reviewed by a lot of people, and the majority of reviews were very positive. I have to admit I was in a bit of a rush,... more info
Everyone can benefit from reading this book!:
Some of us hardly ever get out of the boxes people (including ourselves) put us in, because we don't recognize the symptoms or mechanism. This book makes both the symptoms and the mechanism of boxes clear. Whenever you catch yourself inflating your value or contribution and minimizing other's value or contribution - you are in the box! How much better off would our world be if we treated everyone like people, instead of like objects? People do NOT like being treated like objects, especially objects that are... more info
