SELF ESTEEM
Self esteem is a topic that has been popularised and often trivialised in the mass media, movies, talk back shows, women’s magazines and various management and self development books. It is sometimes seen as “psycho babble”. Let us start by trying to define what self-esteem is and isn’t.
What is self esteem?
Self esteem is the essence of how a person views his or her self – the image they have of themselves, incorporating both the negative and positive aspects of the person. In a nutshell, that’s what it is. What it isn’t, is being self confident or coming across as feeling powerful or very directive or being able to be in charge of people or being complacent or smug in what you do. Self-esteem is about how you feel within yourself, about yourself, and how you deal with your inner fears, assuming you really know what your inner fears are. It’s about being able to be alone with yourself and feeling comfortable with that. It’s about not needing to “do things”, just sitting quietly and enjoying your own space, time and thoughts. Have you tried to do that lately? See what happens when you try this – without meditating as such – simply sitting down and enjoying you own company.
Low self esteem
How does self esteem manifest itself? If you are a CEO, it manifests itself in how you actually run your organisation. For example, if a CEO has a low self esteem, he or she is likely to adopt a more autocratic, task-oriented, low-relationship type of leadership, meaning that they will be very much the absent CEO who is in the ‘ivory tower’, does not relate to people and tends to be more involved in the detail of what needs to be done. The CEO may be seen as a “doer” but not someone that people can actually go and talk to about what needs to be done. He often does not even think about the future of the organisation in a strategic way.
At a more personal level, low self esteem can manifest itself in a number of ways, for example, where a person has difficulties in saying what they honestly think or believe about a particular issue. This is often seen in organisations. Within a personal relationship, say a partnership or marriage, it occurs where one or both people feel they cannot express themselves about how they truly feel about something for fear that they will be rejected, for fear that their partner will leave them. Here are some examples of low self-esteem.
In an organisational setting:
- A CEO who is unable to dismiss or discipline a senior executive who is performing poorly. The CEO is usually unable to tell the executive directly and frequently gives “subtle” messages which do not work. The CEO may even ask another executive to tell the other colleague that they are not wanted in the organisation any longer.
- A CEO who virtually abdicates all responsibility as a CEO, preferring to be a “doer”, taking on an operational or technical role. Such a role is more easily defined, is clear and concrete and is less likely to lead to mistakes being made. This role implies that everything is “grey” and unpredictable and not conducive to proactive interventions.
- A manager who tries to be everybody’s friend and who gives little or no negative feedback to staff, or perhaps not even any feedback at all.
Some personal examples:
- One partner in a relationship who is unable to tell the other partner about how they feel about some negative or positive aspect of that person.
- Someone who stays in a destructive relationship, even one which is physically abusive.
- Someone who wants to be everyone’s friend, to be liked by everyone, without any discrimination as to the nature of the “friendship”.
Self esteem vis-à-vis other emotions
How does self esteem relate to other psychological feelings such as guilt, jealousy, resentment and fear? Are they one and the same thing or different sides of the same coin? All these emotions or feelings that people have are related directly to self-esteem, usually to low self esteem. Issues of jealousy, for example, can arise when someone else receives a promotion and you don’t. We try to rationalise the issue by claiming, for example, that the system was against us. Sometimes the system may well be against you and that is why you weren’t promoted. More often, the reason is due to the fact that the person did not perform adequately in some aspect of their work or in relation to the new position they applied for. The way to cope is to blame the system rather than to look at one’s self. Looking at one’s self means you have got to face your inadequacy. That is also the clue to developing your self-esteem. Many of us don’t face up to that inadequacy; therefore we don’t develop our self-esteem, but go on blaming “the system”.
There are implications in this for leadership styles in organisations.
Self-esteem is fundamentally important because it is the inner mirror of ourselves, helping us take responsibility for who we are and what we do rather than blaming others for any shortcomings.
It also places into perspective the practice of blaming others, because while there may sometimes be some cause to blame others, it forces us to look at what our responsibility is in that particular relationship, whatever it may be, whether work related or outside work. We learn to relate with responsibility, rather than with power, if we happen to be in a senior position in an organisation. For example, if we are the CEO, we act as a resource or support person as we articulate the vision of the organisation (an essential role of the CEO), rather than someone who simply tells staff what to do (a positionally powerful CEO style).
Healthy or “good” self esteem
When we say that someone has good self-esteem, or a healthy self-esteem, what do we mean? Good self esteem means that a person is normally able to discuss their weaknesses in a very matter-of-fact way, to the point where they are able to show that these weaknesses are understood by them, are being worked on by them and are not a hindrance but rather part of their development. It is about accepting the negative aspects about ourselves, while the positive side can then be built on further so that the positive becomes even more positive. An example of developing the positive side is someone who is very good with people and who works very well with people, getting the best out of them, but who develops other ways of getting even more out of them by developing that side to its fullest, rather than saying, “I’m good with people, let’s leave it at that”. It involves thinking laterally about how to do things better.
Unhealthy or “Bad” self esteem
Conversely, what does “bad” self esteem or low self esteem look like? Low self-esteem is very prevalent – in organisations (which tend to be a microcosm of our society) as well as in individuals. Low self esteem can be manifested in someone who is at the bottom of the organisational tree, who is afraid to apply for jobs, is afraid to move on from the particular job they are doing and who ends up staying in the organisation for 20 years at the same level. That’s one obvious example of low self esteem. The other extreme of low self esteem is the highly successful, decorated, highly reputed CEO in a major company, where not only are they known in that organisation, but are widely known across the state or country or even internationally. It can be that that person, even though they have achieved so much, still expresses doubts, “… but I don’t think I’m that capable, everyone else thinks that but I don’t”. Other real-life examples are:
- John F. Kennedy, in some of the comments he made about what he had achieved, indicated he had misgivings or felt certain inadequacies about himself.
- Mahatma Gandhi was very gentle and respectful of human beings but was disgusted by his body image.
- Albert Einstein was extremely intelligent and respected but still had doubts about his abilities.
The list could go on and on.
Please continue this topic in Part 2, coming very shortly. Thanks.
