Product Description

Leadership and Self-Deception is the first book to identify a single, underlying cause of every form of leadership failure. Through the story of Tom - a "shluck" in his manager's words - readers discover that identifying and treating individual leadership problems as if they were separate and distinct is not enough to transform people into successful leaders. The authors suggest that the key to leadership lies not in what we do, but in how we "are." They explore this compelling secret: Self-deception is the central player and trap underlying all leadership failures, relationship issues, and performance problems in organizations. Leaders who live in the box of self-deception are trapped: they cannot lead, no matter how hard they try and no matter how many skills and techniques they employ. With convincing examples, the authors show clearly how self-deception operates and how to overcome it. While other books cover people skills, this one goes deeper, fully illuminating the secret to leadership success.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135781 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

—Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
"It is engaging and fresh, easy to read, and packed with insight. I couldn't recommend it more highly."

About the Author
The Arbinger Institute is a scholarly consortium and management training and consulting firm comprised of scholars, business leaders, and professionals who write about the implications of self-deception for organizational, community, and family life.

Customer Reviews

If you like Covey..You'll find this an excellent read
The Arbinger Institute's view on how we create (organisational) problems for ourselves and then how we "fix" them, is simple yet profound.

I've read hundreds of management , leadership and personal development books ... This one adopts the number one position - Overnight!

Whether you are struglling to influence your team or organisation to willingly embrace change; or find yourself as a parent with a "difficult" child, then this is for you.

They suggest that we suffer from 3 problems!

1 We create our own problems 2 We are blind to these problems 3 We resist wanting to fix these problems..

The book is a story (therefore any easy read!) of a new guy 6 months into his new company, attending his first review with the boss. He believes that he has done really well since he joined and is anticipating bouquets...

However, his boss (the enlightened one!) has a different view. What unfolds is a home truths session that could be you or I... dealing with the essence of why we create the problems we do with people.

Not until the final pages does the author reveal the solution.

Having read Covey, Senge, Peters etc. I found this a refreshing view of our eternal challenge with people.

Buy it and give your friends a copy!

Resistance is useless
I first read this book several years ago but the ideas in it have stayed with me and increased in relevance over time. I read it mainly in the hope of finding ways to 'help' other people improve and so was very resistant to the idea that I might be contributing to the problems they were causing me. However, the simplicity, elegance and depth of the concepts rang so true and were so useful to me, in all areas of my life, that I have come back to it time and time again. At the heart of Arbinger work is the concept that we are continually making a choice in our `way of being' - to be responsive and to see others as people, whose needs and desires are just as important as our own, or to be resistant and to see others as objects, whose needs and desires are not as important as out own. Connected to this is the idea of self deception, which you could describe as the assumption that I am not a problem. When I am self-deceived (which, let's face it, is most of the time!) I am creating my own problems, but I am unable to see this, and I resist any attempt to solve these problems even though I say that is what I want. Liberation lies in the continuing efforts to 'get out of the box' and see people and situations without distortion and this book provides many illustrations and tools to help you do this.

Know Thyself: Are You Self-Deceived?
This book tells of a manager, a CEO, a father, and a 19th century scientist who while searching diligently for their problems "out there" find that the problem is within themselves. If you're familiar with systems thinking you'll understand the science behind it. But the beauty of the book is that it's written as a business fable that follows one character through his self-discovery and correction. Along the way, you'll be drawn in as you find yourself relating to the character's challenges wanting to know what happens next in order to help yourself.

The best way to illustrate the premise behind the book, without revealing the secrets is by retelling the story of the 19th scientist, Dr Ignaz Semmelweis. As an obstetrician in the maternity ward at Vienna General Hospital he observed a high 1 in 10 mortality rate, while next door where the midwives delivered babies the mortality rate was only 1 in 50. Semmelweis researched and tested and experimented, only to discover to his horror that the doctors, who were also experimenting on cadavers, were carrying small 'particles' back to the maternity ward that sickened the women. He discovered "germs" -- and he discovered that the high mortality rate was not caused by something "out there" but by himself.

Leadership and Self-Deception sets out to answer the problem: "How can people simultaneously (1) create their own problems, (2) be unable to see that they are creating their own problems, and yet (3) resist any attempts to help them stop creating those problems?"

As I coach, I help people to recognize their role in their problems and their options to do something about it. I'm always amazed when a client resists working toward a solution because the existence of the problem provides some sort of perverse justification for my client's way of acting or a view of the world. This is self-deception. Profound. The book makes it clear that humans do this quite regularly. Indeed, I clearly saw myself in the book's story.

I won't give away the ending or the solution, only to say that the book takes the reader on a satisfying, yet challenging journey to examine inner motivations, self-betrayal, self-justification, blame of others, and what we can do to stop the cycle. We can't control other people's behavior, but we can choose our response, and this is where the power of personal responsibility lies.

With a balanced approach the book assists the reader to take responsibility for changing the world around them by changing themselves.