Are You A Delusional Leader?
How do you know if you're doing well at whatever you’re doing?
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a now well-known hypothesis that the better someone’s results, the more likely they are to underestimate themselves. And when we’re not doing well - maybe because the mind is craving some kind of balance - we tend to overestimate ourselves. Another study found that even something as simple as having feedback withheld can lower how well someone thinks they’ve done.
All of these cases show that we invent a reality, usually unconsciously, based on what we want and influenced by our environment.
In other words, we humans are really good at deluding ourselves.
After all, human beings often choose what they wish to be true and label that as reality.
But whether you underestimate yourself or overestimate yourself, the underlying principle is the same:
Are you being truthful & honest towards/about yourself?
If not, are you deluding yourself about something?
If so, how do you think that will affect the results you’re getting?
And, are you okay with that?
If you’re like me, the answer is ‘No, I’m not okay with that’.
With all the noise of today’s world, it can feel like we’re stuck in a mire of inputs and thoughts. A debilitating condition to be sure.
The antidote to that condition is serious awareness.
All the time, I need to bring myself back into awareness - maybe I’m more angry about something than I need to be, maybe I think I’m more right or better than I am, maybe I’m feeling down but really shouldn’t be.
I bet you’re similar, because we’re all similar in that way.
So having and building awareness becomes a key quality for anyone who wants to deliver their best results.
Great leaders must master one particular quality - and it’s a mindset of sorts, that enhances how they move through life:
Leaders are aware; they are playing the game.
Being a leader, and living a life of leadership, is an infinite game; indeed, all the places where leaders manifest are in infinite games: entrepreneurship, politics, community; all key areas of life.
What is the “infinite game”? A mindset or principle, that says that everything is a game, but there are different types of games. And any infinite game is one because it doesn’t have fixed rules that everyone has to play by, or a clear “win condition”.
I go into a LOT more depth about this in my e-book.
This matters right now because every decision has a consequence.
The logic is:
To get the best results, the ones you really want, you’ve got to understand the impacts of your decisions.
You can’t do that if you don’t have the awareness to understand what you’re actually doing or what those consequences might be.
So, the more awareness we bring to ourselves, our abilities, and to what the impact of our decisions might be, the more likely we are to have great results, and the better off we’ll be.
So a great leader must build awareness, to stave off the “delusion” of what we are, where we are, how successful we are, etc.
And to help, I have a challenge for you to try over the next week.
One of my rules, Rule #9, is Slow down. Ask yourself at least once a day: “Are you awake yet?”
Every day for the next week, ask yourself, exactly like that, in the second-person and everything, as if you’re talking to yourself —“Are you awake yet?”
And notice what comes up for you.
I specifically designed this question to pull myself out of my noisy mind into the present moment. It works like a charm - though I still need to get better at the habit of asking myself every day. Maybe we can build the habit together.
Lots of love, and here’s to your success! - Seven
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About Seven
Hey friends! I’m Seven - I write about challenges and opportunities affecting leaders across business. I release a weekly newsletter and a podcast, helping folks understand the leadership journeys and challenges out there, so we can better understand our purpose, place, and potential. The goal: to learn about what it means to be a leader, to support leaders, to find leaders, and to discover the leader within.
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Lots of love, and here’s to your success!