4 Ways to Keep Your Ego in Check as a Leader

February 22, 2024

Ego is a destructive force for leaders because it not only impacts the way they think, but also how they act. Left unchecked, ego can make them turn down great opportunities, punish those who disagree with them and stick to outdated beliefs that no longer serve them well.

Ego is our biggest enemy. It not only makes us blind to our flaws and imperfections, it magnifies our desire to be right and prove others wrong.

Unlike threats in our environment that we can instantly feel and pay attention to, ego is hidden deep within our subconscious. When we react to other people, we often don’t realize that it’s our ego that has hijacked our mind and is making us act in self-destructive ways.

Ego let loose is like a wild beast that attacks whosoever gets in their way. It doesn’t care about other people or situations and can even turn us into our worst enemy by making us act opposite to the goals we seek.

While ego is harmful to everyone, it is the most dangerous thing in a leader. It compromises their ability to think clearly, makes them rigid to their ideas and beliefs and prevents them from staying closer to reality.

Ego in a leader can cost organizations hundreds of millions of dollars in poor decision-making—they may refuse to quit and continue to push forward on a failed cause even when all signs point in the other direction. Ego tells them that quitting is for losers which makes them turn down other favorable opportunities right in front of them by not being able to forgo the past value they attached to a decision. They keep investing in the sunk costs until it’s too late.

It’s that petulant child inside every person, the one that chooses getting his or her way over anything or anyone else. The need to be better than, more than, recognized for, far past any reasonable utility—that’s ego. It’s the sense of superiority and certainty that exceeds the bounds of confidence and talent.
— Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy

As a leader, believing in your skills, abilities, knowledge and experience is required to make good decisions and stay resilient in the face of challenges and difficulties, but left unchecked this self-confidence can soon turn into arrogance.

You may attack people who disagree with you.

You may raise your voice when your decision is challenged.

You may refuse to listen to ideas that contradict your views.

Good leadership and ego can’t exist together. Ego messes up with your head and makes you delusional. Learn to keep it in check by following these four practices:

Catch ego trying to make an appearance

Most people are able to spot the ego monster in others, while failing to acknowledge when it shows up in them.

Unless you’re vigilant to notice when ego will likely make an appearance, you may let it interfere with your decision making process without ever detecting it.

Ego typically shows up when it senses threat. But, since your mind can’t differentiate between a real threat and a perceived one, it signals ego even when there’s no real danger. And ego not knowing it’s not a big deal overreacts to anything that arouses strong emotions and makes you feel hurt.

To keep ego in check, watch out for these situations where your ego is most likely to appear:

Others disagree with you.
Your idea is challenged or rejected.
Someone interrupts you in a meeting without letting you complete your thoughts.
You don’t know something and feel the need to hide your ignorance.
You lack certain skills that a member of your team demonstrates well which makes you consider them as a threat.
You make a mistake and worry about losing respect and credibility.
You’re passed up for an opportunity and another member of your leadership team is chosen in your place.

Ego can show up when the stakes are high or when you’re least prepared to handle it. Unless you consciously pay attention to your emotions and feelings in these situations, you’re more likely to act in unexpected ways.

Ask these questions to be more self-conscious:

Am I thinking rationally or is it my ego making me think this way?
How do I know that I am not inclined towards this choice because I want to prove myself?
Have I considered alternative viewpoints?

In the presence of ego, we forget who we are.
We lean into emotions that distract us by far.
What do you achieve by outshining another?
Dominance? Ignorance? A stance like no other?
I’ve tripped over pride and fallen in shame.
I’ve towered on top… of those others in pain.
The best way to fix this is deflecting such arrogance.
Replacing it now, with more kindness and eloquence.
— Andrew Pacholyk, Pearls of Light

Break the overconfidence cycle

Leaders enter the overconfidence cycle when they become ignorant of their own ignorance.

A false sense of mastery promotes a strong conviction in their ideas and knowledge. They fail to notice gaps in what they know and refuse to acknowledge what they don’t know.

They are so eager to speak that they don’t stop to observe and listen.

They are so blinded by their strengths, that they fail to see their weaknesses.

They are so consumed in trying to be right that they fail to do the right thing.

Driven by the desire to seem more competent, they become blind to their own incompetence—with just enough information, but not enough expertise. Never stopping, never listening, never asking. There’s no place for humility to step in. Ego takes up all the space.

Certainty is the biggest monster. Confidence in their knowledge gives them permission to pass judgment and dismiss information that does not match their beliefs as they feel absolutely certain about their decision.

Why would they question their opinion or seek information that contradicts their viewpoint when they are certain of what they know?

How can they ever identify the gaps in their knowledge unless they believe it can be flawed?

A sense of superiority and pride in their knowledge makes them less and less interested in learning and updating their beliefs.

Dunning-Kruger effect further clouds their vision of their abilities—The less competent they are, the more they overestimate their abilities. The more they lack competence, the more they are likely to be brimming with overconfidence. Sort of a catch 22. Without the skills to spot their own mistakes, they can’t see where they are going wrong and therefore assume they are doing great.

Tim Urban, writer of the Wait But Why blog describes arrogance as “ignorance plus conviction.” This is exactly what these leaders demonstrate “an especially deadly combo because it prevents them from improving. It not only leaves them without real knowledge, it deprives them of the humility needed to gain real knowledge or grow into a better thinker. When they think they are already doing great, they feel like there’s no room left for improvement. While humility is a permeable filter that absorbs life experience and converts it into knowledge and wisdom, arrogance is a rubber shield that life experience simply bounces off of.”

The right kind of confidence isn’t a central point between fear on one end and arrogance on the other. The sweet spot of confidence is tempered with humility. It requires developing confidence in your abilities while showing humility to doubt your knowledge and your methods. Confidence, how much you believe in yourself is important. But, humility to know where you fall short and seek help is just as important. What can breed arrogance through unshakeable confidence is avoided by humility.

To keep ego in check, that is exactly what every leader needs—confident humility. Adam Grant describes it in Think Again as “having faith in our capability while appreciating that we may not have the right solution or even be addressing the right problem. That gives us enough doubt to reexamine our old knowledge and enough confidence to pursue new insights.”

Confident humility is:

Confidence in a leader’s ability to make the right decision while acknowledging that they need others to do it right.
Knowing what they don’t know and having trust in what they do.
Having faith in their strengths, while also being aware of their weaknesses.
Accepting that they don’t have the required knowledge, but enough confidence in their ability to acquire that knowledge.

A leader with confident humility isn’t devoid of blind spots. Rather they put measures in place to counter those blind spots.

Balancing confidence with humility leaves less room for ego. It gives an opportunity to lead by combining your experience and knowledge with those of others and using the strengths of your people to make better decisions.

Detach your identity from your work

Some leaders take their role too seriously. They try to portray the perfect image of a leader who has all the answers, never makes mistakes and knows exactly what they’re doing.

They demand respect, authority and expect to be treated in a certain way. Work becomes a part of their identity—they identify too closely with their role.

This creates a problem because the moment things don’t go their way, they feel offended—the natural tendency to protect themselves makes them turn argumentative, defensive and edgy.

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.” In short, accept that your position was faulty, not your ego.
— Colin Powell, It Worked for Me

Not taking things personally is important because it gives leaders the perspective needed to evaluate the situation realistically without personal biases and prejudices.

Treating your identity separate from your work removes ego from the equation. You stop classifying everything into ‘good or bad,’ ‘right or wrong,’ which leaves room for balanced perspectives.

To do this:

Detach your identity from your ideas.
Evaluate feedback and suggestions in the context of your behaviors and actions as opposed to who you are.
Instead of using authority and power to drive change and lead initiatives, influence and motivate your team to achieve better results.
Be willing to say “I don’t know,” and express vulnerability.

Your identity isn’t about the role you play. Stop identifying and making it about your work and start thinking about the behaviors and practices of the person you wish to become.

Know how you come across to others

An excellent practice to curb your ego is to openly seek feedback on how others perceive you. Hearing feedback on where you’re falling short may not be easy, but consciously asking for it is a great way to push yourself out of your comfort zone.

Many leaders fail at this. They either do not explicitly seek feedback or the way they ask for it only boosts their ego by getting feel-good praise about what they’re doing well without surfacing the actual areas where they’re falling short.

There are lurking gaps in how leaders view their actions and how others perceive them leading to inadvertent blind spots. Without getting the criticism they need, they keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

As a leader, making your employees comfortable to criticize you isn’t easy. Don’t expect them to walk over to you and give you the feedback unless you take the first few steps in seeking it.

Done right, feedback can be a great tool to get rid of ego by working on behaviors that are damaging to yourself and the success of your organization and its people.

It requires that you create an environment where others feel safe in expressing their honest opinion. People won’t speak up unless they feel that you’re genuinely interested in hearing their views.

The real leverage is creating pull. Creating pull is about mastering the skills required to drive our own learning; it’s about how to recognize and manage our resistance, how to engage in feedback conversations with confidence and curiosity, and even when the feedback seems wrong, how to find insight that might help us grow.
— Douglas Stone, Thanks for the Feedback

To get clear and actionable feedback, follow these practices:

Don’t create the faulty image of a perfect leader without flaws. Set real expectations that you are learning and growing much like everyone else. Whenever you make a mistake, acknowledge it openly. When you don’t know something, don’t pretend. Show curiosity to understand.
Frame your questions in a way that makes it easy for the feedback giver to share useful inputs. Ask open ended questions that cannot be answered with a yes or no response.
Follow up and close the loop on their feedback. Tell them what you plan to do with their suggestions or concerns. When you act on their feedback, share your progress irrespective of the outcome.

Becoming comfortable with criticism reduces ego’s power over you. You’re more likely to stay in control and respond thoughtfully in situations where ego has an upper hand.

Ego and awareness can’t coexist. If you want to be a great leader, choose awareness over pride.

Ending with this thought from Roy T. Bennett —

“The more you can have control over your ego rather than let it run amuck, the more successful you’ll be in all areas of life.”

Summary

Ego is a destructive force for leaders because it not only impacts the way they think, but also how they act. Left unchecked, ego can make them turn down great opportunities, punish those who disagree with them and stick to outdated beliefs that no longer serve them well.
Ego is hard to detect because it may be your default reaction when things don’t go your way or outcomes don’t meet your expectations. Letting your brain run on autopilot in situations where ego is likely to show up makes it go wild. With no one to control it, it tries to do everything in its power to control others and sway them in its direction.
The first step to manage ego is to be mentally present in situations which have a high likelihood of inviting ego. Being conscious and deliberate can override your default tendency to shut down or overreact.
Confidence is a much appreciated quality in leaders. But relying too much on your knowledge and expertise without paying attention to your gaps can turn your confidence into arrogance. Preventing this requires mixing confidence with humility—believing in your ability to make the right decision while acknowledging that you need others to do it right.
Leaders who identify too closely with their work start to take things personally. Making things about them enables the ego to fight back in situations where it feels hurt. Reducing its power requires disconnecting your identity from your work.
Getting feedback from others without justification or getting defensive is a great strategy to embrace discomfort. Practicing this regularly and consciously can shut down your ego.