My clients often have one or more superpowers. They may be charismatic leaders who readily inspire confidence. Or they may be gifted storytellers who convey a compelling vision of the future. Or they may discern patterns in technical or financial data that escape most people. Or their laser-focus and eye for detail may enable them to catch even the slightest error. Or they may have a seemingly endless capacity for work. The list goes on.
These superpowers have been important factors in my clients' success, and in some cases even form an integral aspect of their identity. But despite the benefits a superpower can confer, they almost always have a shadow side. We see this in most superhero stories--their fatal flaws are invariably intertwined with their incredible gifts. In practical terms a superpower's shadow side can take several forms:
Hubris
One of the earliest "superheros" was Achilles, the greatest warrior among the Greek forces in the Trojan War. According to legend his mother dipped him in the River Styx as an infant, seemingly rendering him impervious to injury. But she held him by his heel, which never touched the mystical waters. Years later, as the Greeks were about to claim victory in Troy, in large part due to Achilles' heroic efforts, he was slain by an arrow that found his one vulnerability. [1]
Today an "Achilles' Heel" might refer to any number of potential flaws or shortcomings, but in all cases there's a degree of hubris that increases the risks they pose. Management consultant and researcher Graham Robinson has studied hubris in business and political leaders and has concluded that it involves "arrogance, unmerited self-belief and self-confidence, an unwillingness to seek or listen to advice, and a readiness to enter domains that are 'the reserve of the Gods,' suggesting a loss of touch with reality." [2]
The antidote to hubris is humility, of course, but that quality becomes harder to obtain the more it's needed. By the time we've fallen victim to our own hubris, it's too late. An important source of humility to cultivate early in our career and sustain over time is a relationship with a trusted ally who can keep us grounded. Robinson describes such a figure as "a mentor, an independent 'friend-at-court,' a jester, or what President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to as a 'toe-holder'--someone not afraid to tell him when he was going too far." [3]
Other sources of humility that I've seen leaders benefit from include: The study of literature and history, replete with examples of leaders blinded by hubris who paid a steep price. [4] A spiritual practice or religious faith that puts professional success and material rewards in perspective. The transcendence that can be realized through exposure to the wonders of nature and great works of art. And a heightened awareness of mortality, which reminds us of the fleeting nature of this existence and the impermanence of all our accomplishments. [5]
Blindness
Because superpowers are so effective they become the tools we reach for reflexively in the face of difficulties. This works under predictable conditions, but it can break down when we fail to appreciate subtle changes in the environment or are surprised by unexpected circumstances. Then, suddenly, the previously reliable intervention fails to yield the desired result or is actively counter-productive. I first heard this dynamic described years ago by Carole Robin, one of my mentors: Our weaknesses are often overused strengths. The challenge is that repeated reliance on a particular set of tools can blind us to alternatives, and we imagine that those superpowers are our only powers.
The first step toward seeing more clearly is obtaining a greater degree of self-awareness and a keener understanding of our preferences and tendencies. This requires some form of reflection, such as journaling. There's ample evidence demonstrating the value of keeping a journal [6], but in my experience most leaders dismiss the idea because it reminds them of a middle-school diary filled with daily ephemera. The point of a journal isn't to document every experience, but to take the swirling, inchoate thoughts and feelings that accompany a particularly meaningful experience and render them more concrete and therefore easier to examine and recall.
Despite the value of reflection, it's essential to gather data from other sources, most notably feedback from people we trust. We need not agree with the feedback, but there's typically something to learn from it, even (and especially) when we find it disconfirming or uncomfortable. [7] The eventual goal is consolidate our own reflections and feedback from others into a set of observations that illuminate our blind spots and invite us to get out of our comfort zones to expand our repertoire of skills. [8]
Fear
Reflexive reliance upon our superpowers can reflect a lack of perspective or imagination--it simply may not occur to us to employ other tools or to look beyond our current capabilities. But in some cases our dependence stems from fear--it's not that we can't envision other possibilities, but that we're scared to try. We may be afraid of change--psychologist and management theorist Edgar Schein described a important barrier to change as "learning anxiety," and, as I've noted before, when we're in the grip of this emotion "our identity and sense of worth are connected to our current behavior, and [we fear that] change will result in a new (and uncertain) identity or a loss of self-esteem." [9]
We may worry that acknowledging limits on our superpowers is an admission of vulnerability, which is often equated with weakness. Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston's Graduate School of Social Work, and a popular author on the subject of vulnerability, offers a different perspective: "The perception that vulnerability is weakness is the most widely accepted myth about vulnerability and the most dangerous... To believe vulnerability is weakness is to believe that feeling is weakness... It starts to make sense that we dismiss vulnerability as weakness only when we realize that we've confused feeling with failing and emotions with liabilities." [10]
Whatever the source of our fears, overcoming them in order to grow less reliant on our superpowers will require a increased capacity for emotion regulation, and to be clear, regulation does not mean suppression. Instead, emotion regulation entails improving our ability to sense, understand, articulate and express our emotions, and we develop those skills by getting closer to our feelings, not by distancing ourselves from them. [11] This enables us to establish a different relationship with our fear, not seeking to suppress it, but no longer allowing it to dictate our choices. At that point we can begin to take some risks, and I'm reminded of some useful guidance from psychotherapist Phil Stutz:
The risk you take has a feedback effect on the unconscious. The unconscious will give you ideas and it wants you to act on them. The more courage you have when you act, the more ideas it will give you. [12]
Footnotes
[1] Achilles' heroics (and his hubris) are on full display in The Iliad, and I recommend this masterful translation by Robert Fagles. The story about his heel isn't referenced by Homer, so presumably it was a later addition to the myth.
[2] Because It’s There: Risk, Reality and the 'Hubris Black Hole', page 2 (Graham Robinson, Daedelus Trust, 2017)
[3] Ibid, page 4.
[4] Two of my favorite examples of hubris in literature are Captain Ahab in Moby Dick and Sgt. Croft in Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. The Vietnam War was an endless display of hubris by American politicians and military leaders--see Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie and David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest.
[5] For more on mortality:
- The Final Third (On Mortality, Values and Spending Time)
- Three Painful Truths (On Change, Leadership & Mortality)
- Not Every End Is a Goal (On Midlife Malaise)
[6] The Value of Journal Writing
[7] For more on feedback:
- Feedback Is Not a Gift
- Why Some Feedback Hurts (and What To Do About It)
- Make Getting Feedback Less Stressful
- Building a Feedback-Rich Culture
[8] Conscious Competence in Practice
[10] Daring Greatly, pages 33-35 (Brené Brown, 2012)
[11] For more on emotion regulation:
[12] Hollywood Shadows: A Cure for Blocked Screenwriters (Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker, 2011)
Photo by John Williams.
