This is a guest-post by Hema Srinivas, a coach, trainer and consultant.
Look at the LinkedIn posts of the people who are your Level 1 connections, the ones you follow and those whose posts pop up on your feed. How often have you felt that posts seem self-centered, verging on attention seeking and exaggerated achievements?
As a leader, when we look back at our achievements, is it with a sense of pride - a happy, warm feeling and satisfaction, yet being comfortable with failure, or is it a sense of superiority and an “It’s all about me” feeling where we are afraid to fail?
As a coach and trainer, an oft discussed challenge that I hear from managers and leaders who were born in the 70s and 80s, is the ways of working of the Gen Z. Some of these managers and leaders find it difficult to accept that there are newer ways of working, fresh perspectives to solving problems and different styles of managing relationships. This stems from their achievements from their time-tested methods and a blind-spot in accepting that there are many ways to succeed. They decry the ways of working of the new generation. Ask the Gen Zs and they will tell you a different story, about how stifling the managers and leaders are in their style of working. The perhaps vain ‘head in the cloud’ attitude is a dampener in the way their teams perceive them.
The fine line between pride and vanity is one that determines how vulnerable we are as leaders and dare I say how loved we are as genuine and authentic people.
A certain level of pride in our work is welcome, but it is good to keep a finger on the pulse on the impact it is having on our teams. From time to time it is healthy to introspect and check how others are reacting to this pride and if the pride has inadvertently given way to vanity.
The absolutely essential self-check questions to keep guiding our inner compass include:
- Am I open to new ideas?
- Do I demonstrate my vulnerable side?
- Am I willing to accept the changes that the future holds?
- Do I listen to others?
- Am I hurt by feedback?
- Is there a streak of narcissism in me, that I have blocked all fresh learning and living in my past?
- Am I the kind of leader who is advocating transparency, collaboration and innovation as lip service or am I living these principles?
We can all take a lesson from Simon Sinek’s talk “We only deserve a Styrofoam cup”
Check if the love and accolade we get is because of our individual capacity or because of the seat and position we occupy. Many a leader eats humble pie after leaving or quitting their positions of power and feels the vacuum in terms of the love of followers.
Pride is good, Vanity is not. The play of Ego is something to watch out for.
The next time we reflect about our achievements let us think about:
- Approachability: This includes being open to feedback and the sense of openness, which encourages the newbie in the team to speak up without fear
- Humility: Detox from the Power trip. Be open to learning and unlearning. Be wary of hubris as a leader.
- Focusing on the bigger picture: Being sensitive to the needs of others reminds us that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. Emotional Intelligence plays a big part in determining which side of the fine line we fall in – Pride or Vanity
- Gratitude: Know what has contributed to our success and give back to others and facilitate an enabling environment for others to achieve success
In the words of Jane Austen, “Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”
The choice is ours.