Blanchard Webinar–Don’t Let Your Ego Hijack Your Career: 4 Warning Signs
Join writer, researcher, and speaker David Witt for a complimentary webinar and online chat beginning today at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (12:00 noon Eastern).
In a special presentation on Don’t Let Your Ego Hijack Your Career: 4 Warning Signs, David will be sharing some of the latest research on ego, personality, and its impact on leadership behavior. You’ll learn four warnings signs of an overactive ego and three ways to keep your ego in check. The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 500 people expected to participate.
Immediately after the webinar, David will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes. To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.
Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat
- Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
- Type in your question
- Push SUBMIT COMMENT
It’s as easy as that! David will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received. Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.
We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Click here for more information on participating.
Great session!
Thanks Doug! Looking forward to additional questions here at the blog.
Hello all. David Witt is here to field your questions from our recently concluded webinar. Feel free to leave a comment/question and David will reply.
I just sat in on your webinar and I’m very glad I did. This was especially insightful, driven with caring and professionally helpful. I think there is great application also to our personal relationships.
Thank you Florence–I’m glad that you could join us today.
David – Several folks were asking for a list of the “dark side” traits that you mentioned. How can they get more info on those?
The “dark side” traits are a part of the work pioneered by Dr. Robert Hogan–you can see the entire list of derailers along with expanded descriptions in his book, Personality and the Fate of Organizations. You can also download white papers from his consulting company, Hogan Assessments.
Thanks for the good webinar.
You’re welcome Tom–thanks for joining us today.
Sudha Bhat asked: Are there some other psychological needs that could be driving the early warning signs that your ego is out of control?
The dysfunctional coping strategies I mentioned at first were excessive concerns for security, recognition, and approval. The research behind this was mentioned in Personality and the Fate of Organizations. Send me an email at david.witt@kenblanchard.com and I can send you the complete citation which will contain the complete study.
David, you mentioned that you can “toot your own horn” when you “come from a place of humility.” What does that really look and sound like? The reason I ask is that we/I know our intentions (as you said during the call), but how do we make sure those intentions are translating to others so we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot with too little ego?
Hi Doug,
I would suggest a “keeping you informed” approach where it becomes more of a routine instead of something that is “saved up”. Ultimately, though, it is really most important to have it coming from the right place. There is a subtlety there that is hard to manufacture. Also, send me an email at david.witt and I will look for some sentence starters if that will help. Let me know.
Thanks, David!
What can we do from an L & D perspective to help our leaders to manage their egos before dark-side problems emerge?
Hi Lindsey, I would highly recommend the four books I referenced as a great place to start. Egonomics, Personality and the Fate of Organizations, Why CEOs Fail, and Leading at A Higher Level. Each of those books has recommendations and action plans that I think you could build off of.
I have a question but want to preface it with this: I work for a Christian university. The university is the first university where we have been permitted to share faith and offer significant support for prayer requests. I realize that few organizations will permit this. I must say that I feel great freedom to reach out to my students and address their needs and concerns–for this I am grateful. In other areas of my life, there seem to be issues of management of one thing or another, including management of a small business. While that goes well, normally, there have been some instances that have posed significant challenges. One has been where a handful of individuals have come back at us with something like “I’m all about facts, not feelings. If you’re talking about feelings, I’m out of it.” I believe feelings are so important….we all have them and need to address them. How can we reach the individuals who are all about fact?
Hi Florence, I think I would approach “facts” people with an equation that looks something like this.
Perceptions of facts = resulting feelings = intentions to act
Facts and feelings are not separate, they are points along the same continuum.
Thank you, David. I like this formula…I like the way you put things. I must go now but I’ll return. Thank you for a meaningful session. Blessings!
Dave – Leticia Garzon asks for your thoughts on how you can encourage someone to have MORE of an ego (in a balanced way)? For example, a manager who always seems intimidated by subordinates or lacks confidence in his/her abilities.
I would suggest looking at the material we discussed today and using it as an opener for a discussion around how this particular manager is evaluating him or herself in each of the areas we looked at. I bet you will find some insight and action steps that way.
Thanks to everyone for joining us today. For additional information, visit http://www.kenblanchard.com. If you have specific questions that I can help with, please email me at david.witt@kenblanchard.com.
Sounds like it was a very valuable session, sorry I missed it. Is there a recording?
David,
I truly enjoyed your webinar and found the “Early warning signs of an ego out of control” very insightful. Thanks for sharing the three attitudes of how to keep your ego in check and the excellent books as resources. Great job!!