Part 2: Know your ego

Power: Breaking the Taboo

This is the second entry in a series of four blogs on power: each will contain an important lesson about how power works, and I will offer concrete tools to help you navigate and influence your social environment more effectively. The text below is based on a talk for Rabobank Women’s Network on 24 October 2018. You can find the introduction here and my first entry here. Interested in reading more? Make sure to follow my page to be notified when I upload the next post!

Remember what I said in the introduction: how power is everywhere? When I say that, I don't just mean it's a factor in all our institutions, businesses and politics. Power is beyond that: it pervades even our private life. In fact, all of us started to learn about power in the very same places: the homes where we grew up. It is in our family that the mechanics of power first become visible to us. And from the very start of our lives, our future relationships to power, and our ways of coping with it, are being shaped: even when we are too young to be aware of it.

How does power play a role in the family context? Well: as a child, we are totally dependent on our parents. We can't yet take care of ourselves. Our parents know how the world works, and you don't - not yet. That powerlessness can be frustrating. That's why children will quickly develop a desire to assert themselves.

Since, as children, it will frequently happen that our wishes are not truly respected or recognized (just think of every time you begged for ice cream and didn't get it!), we're not taken seriously, or not much attention is paid to us, all of us develop the desire to wield influence and develop some measure of control over the world.

To assert ourselves as children and influence our social position, we develop behavior that protects us and helps us get what we want. Every child will pick up what I call ego strategies to tilt the balance of power in their favor: by imitating their parents, or simply through trial and error. It's very simple: even as children, we want to defend our self-esteem, and we want to get our way. And often, we achieve that by manipulating those who hold power over us. It will come as no surprise, then, that our ego strategies developed in childhood are often deeply manipulative.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. The ego strategies we develop in childhood help to make us feel like we have more of a grasp on our situation; we can't really blame ourselves for having them. But what's interesting is that the strategies you developed as a child don't disappear. They might get a bit more sophisticated, but most people will fall back on them in situations where they experience discomfort in our relationship with others. And unfortunately, that is often precisely what prevents us from achieving our goals, because the ego strategies reinforce the power struggle.

Let me proceed by giving you a little overview of ego strategies. These are the eight I've most often seen at work. When you read this, try assessing for yourself, and be honest: which ones are you most familiar with? Which ones do you use, and the people around you?

A small taxonomy of ego strategies

Strategy 1: Emotional manipulation.

Emotional manipulation is an ego strategy which works by appealing to someone's feelings. Emotional manipulators tend to play the victim, making others feel bad until they get their way. Alternatively, they might use flattery: I can't do this without you! I absolutely need you! It is so important to the project that you participate!

I'll give you an example. When my son was ten years old and he came home after school, he would often carelessly park his bike in such a way that it obstructed the entire front yard. One day I saw him park it that way and gave him a scolding. With a face expressing deep indignation he looked me in the eyes and sulked: "I don't feel welcome in this home."

This maneuver - of turning the accusation around and appealing to my guilty conscience - is a classic emotional manipulation strategy. In one convenient move, my son turned my disapproving gaze around onto myself as a parent. Suddenly, I was the one who had failed him. I was to blame.

Strategy 2: Deflection.

The prototypical deflection strategy operates by quite simply changing the subject. My father is a true expert at this. If you try to confront him and it leads him to feel emotional or uncomfortable, he will just start talking about something or someone totally unrelated. If you've ever been in a leadership position, you'll probably also be familiar with this ego strategy: when you give someone negative feedback, often the recipient will try to start talking about something else as soon as possible.

Strategy 3: Authoritarian behavior.

Authoritarian behavior is more common in men, but that is not to say women don't do it; and generally, it's another ego strategy that almost everybody will have experienced. People who yell "I will not accept this!" while stomping the floor; or those who use intimidation tactics or threats to scare others into submission. Some might continue to insist even after someone has refused their request, cruelly punish people who don't submit to their demands, or constantly use an aggressive tone of voice. This behavior, because it comes with dominant body language and an aura of authority, can lead to high ranking, but often leads other people to respond with ego strategies of their own, such as passive-aggressive sabotage or total avoidance. In the end, then, while this ego strategy may be mistaken for leadership, it often ends up being quite ineffective at getting people to do what you want, when you want it.

Strategy 4: Controlling behavior.

These are the micromanagers: people who double-check everything you do, and insist nothing is good enough unless it's done exactly the way they would have done it. Parents often do this to their children: for example, I knew a mother who, whenever she had to leave for a few days, would prepare little piles of clothes for each of her children to wear every day, and left food in the fridge in measured amounts for each day she was absent. Power masked as tender loving care. But more generally, every office has its control freaks. Trying to control everything makes them feel powerful (or soothes the fear of powerlessness) – but this strategy often leads to burn-outs and extreme stress from taking on all responsibility. The effect may well be that the people around them will simply lean back and relax.

Strategy 5: Avoidance. Avoidance comes in many forms. When somebody tries to get you to do something, the avoider may simply refuse to engage, or find an excuse and disappear. S/he might remain totally silent throughout meetings, or lie and hide the truth to prevent confrontations. Children often do this too, without being aware of how obvious it is. But we adults are not immune: I have also been guilty of this. Recently I broke a promise to my partner and didn't call someone I was supposed to. Of course, he got mad at me, and rightly so. However, he expressed his anger in an authoritarian way, and I did not want to be made to feel small. So as a counter-strategy, I reflexively denied that I made this promise to him at all.

Strategy 6: Pleasing. Pleasing is also a kind of ego strategy: the pleaser wants desperately to be agreeable, and will bury all her personal needs and views to achieve it. By minimizing confrontation, the pleaser can defend their status, piggyback along on somebody else's power, or try to get things done by making herself popular with everybody around her.

Strategy 7: Passive-aggressiveness. This is another strategy that can express itself in a wide range of behaviors. The passive-aggressive ego will use sarcasm, sabotage, and negativity to get their way. They may take out frustrations on others with cruel jokes or remarks, they nag, whine, gossip, and endlessly question details. Sometimes they will refuse to take things seriously and play the clown. Passive-aggressive behavior is difficult to call out, and it often seriously damages the atmosphere of trust necessary to reach an agreement. I've seen a single saboteur take entire teams hostage, drawing everyone into a spiral of negativity without revealing their true motivations.

Strategy 8: Defensiveness. This is the classic "yes, but..." maneuver. Typically, defensive responses operate by explaining oneself: rather than apologizing or asking questions, the defensive ego strategy appeals to the understanding of the other. Sometimes they will throw up a smokescreen of reasons why they are not to blame, all beyond their control: like the classic “my dog ate my homework.”

Strategy 9: Intellectualization. Intellectualization is a strategy that I frequently see in highly educated professionals. There are various ways to do this: some might assume a superior, normative position, which they support with all sorts of theoretical concerns, to impose their wishes. Intellectualizers often ignore the emotional aspects of a discussion, or the emotional needs of others, and the worst of them believe themselves to be 'objective' and superior in intelligence because of this. Telltale signs are forceful, insistent argumentation, or unreasonable or inflexible insistence on protocol or principles.

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So, chances are you'll recognize one or more of these ego strategies in your own behavior. Please don't worry: whichever it is, it is entirely natural! Everybody develops a preference for one or multiple ego strategies in childhood and we often keep using them all our lives. However, as long as we reflexively turn to our ego strategies when power threatens our sense of security, we risk losing a lot of time, energy and trust on every conflict. You lose the ability to connect and negotiate as equals - and without that, it becomes extremely difficult to compromise or find solutions.

So, if you wanted to do things differently, how would you do that?

I'll give you a recent example where I was confronted with my own favorite ego strategy.

Some time ago, I had a first meeting with a potential partner for an acquisition talk. It didn't take long for the conversation to take on a strange and unpleasant dynamic. In my perception, this potential partner was very arrogant. He acted like an inquisitor and was endlessly demanding. “So how do you distinguish yourself?” he kept asking, over and over. No matter what I said, he would not be convinced, and repeated the question.

I started to feel very small, like a little girl who had to prove herself. And that was when my ego strategy played up. I felt myself get really angry: who the hell does this guy think he is? No way I am going to work with him! I was ready to just get up and walk to my car, leaving him and his stupid questions behind. (Indeed: avoidance!)

But that's not what I did.

Instead, I shared my true feelings. I told him I wasn't happy with the way the conversation was going. That I felt like I was made to pass an exam, instead of talking as equals. And I told them that wasn't what I was hoping for when I came here; that I was hoping we could have a different kind of conversation.

After I spoke my mind, he fell silent; blushes appeared on his cheeks. He looked up and asked me: what would you like me to do?

From that moment, our conversation changed completely. And today, we have a very fruitful working relationship.

So, to summarize: if you are aware of your own ego mechanisms and when they play up, you can choose to engage in a different way. Inform the other person honestly how you feel. In many cases, this will completely neutralize power dynamics before they hijack an interaction. While it isn't easy, it is amazingly powerful, and does justice to yourself and everyone around you.

So, now I'm curious, of course... If you dare, let me know in the comments below: which is your favorite ego strategy? Oh, and of course, I have to ask: please share this blog if you enjoyed it or found it useful! The next entry will be about a different dimension of power: the power of systems. There, I will explain why sometimes, changing a power dynamic requires a totally different approach than I've explained above. In some situations, your ranking or mastery of ego offers no assistance in dealing with power; in those cases, it doesn't matter how well you have the conversation - it matters where you have it. But more on that in the next post. I look forward to continuing our conversation there!