The Impact of Ego in a team

"The personal ego already?has a strong element of dysfunction, but the collective ego is, frequently, even more dysfunctional, to the point of absolute insanity."

Eckhart Tolle

If you are a leader then TRUST YOUR TEAM! Park your ego – it is not all about how well you can ‘manage’ people. If you recruited intelligently and trained your team well and on top of that, you created the right environment/culture for success then let them get on with what they are good at. You cannot control everything. As a leader you keep your eye on the bigger picture, you strategise, plan and let your team deliver on the tasks that align to the overarching goal(s). Don't let ego derail you.

Let's take a quick look at Ego - what is it?

*??????? A person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance.

*??????? The “I” or self of a person that distinguishes itself from the selves of others.

*??????? The part of human psychology that experiences and reacts to the outside world and mediates between the primitive drives of the id (the part of the mind in which innate and instinctive impulses are processed) and the demands of the social and physical environment. According to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality, the id is the personality component made up of unconscious psychic energy that works to satisfy basic urges, needs, and desires

*??????? A person’s level of self-importance, self-esteem, or self-image.

We all have an ego and understanding it and knowing how to use everyone’s ego effectively is key in a high performing team. If you do not then team cohesion will fall apart quickly, and long-term success will not be found. I have witnessed this on several occasions, for example, I was asked to work with a senior leadership team a few years ago who had some challenges, to put it politely. Most of their challenges could be dealt with and resolved effectively so that they could operate much more efficiently as an SLT, but there was one area that proved to be their biggest challenge and that was their MD (the ‘boss’). The guy was simply not in the right role and had a negative ego the size of a planet.

To give you an example of what I mean, we would run facilitated discussions involving everyone in the room allowing input from each person and this guy would simply get up and wander around not paying attention. When it came to me facilitating (leading) a discussion because I wanted to introduce a tool that could help the team he simply stood up, walked behind where I was sat and then just stood there. Strange and disruptive behaviour, which given that they (he) was paying me for my services made it even more weird. He kept interrupting so I decided to take a break and took him to one side to have a chat.

This was all about ego – the guy simply could not let his go for the sake of the team. He was the ‘boss’ and boy did he let everyone know it. Many of the team came up to me separately and apologised for him and said, “that’s just the way he is”. This is not an excuse at all. Every team member either changes or perpetuates a culture.

A culture of enlarged egos and ‘I am the top dog’ mentality will NEVER succeed in the long run. It will cause resentment, unhealthy rivalry, and competition within a team.

And very importantly in an age where innovation and forward thinking is key to future success, in my experience some of the inability to truly use innovative ideas from new blood in a business is down to fear and ego.

All the best.

Dave

Extracted from the book Team Foundations - www.teamfoundations.co.uk

www.thesuccessfactory.co.uk

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