Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box

Annotation The "disease" of self-deception (acting in ways contrary to what one knows is right) underlies all leadership problems in today's organizations, according to the premise of this work. However well intentioned they may be, leaders who deceive themselves always end up undermining their own performance. This straightforward book explains how leaders can discover their own self-deceptions and learn how to escape destructive patterns. The authors demonstrate that breaking out of these patterns leads to improved teamwork, commitment, trust, communication, motivation, and leadership This Book Uses An Entertaining Story To Identify Self-deception As The Underlying Cause Of Leadership Failure, And Show How Any Leader Can Overcome Self-deception To Become A Consistent Catalyst Of Success. The Authors Show That The Key To Successful Leadership Lies Deeper Than A Particular Technique, Behavior Or Skill, And That Most People Problems In Organizations Are The Result Of Self-deception--a Problem That Can Be Identified, Isolated, And Treated In A Disciplined, Results-oriented Way. The Book Demonstrates How People Can Stop Undermining Themselves And What Happens When They Do--freely And Fully Putting To Work All The Behavioral Skills, Systems, And Techniques That Will Bring Success To Them And Their Organizations.--from Publisher Description. Self-deception And The Box -- Bud -- A Problem -- Self-deception -- The Problem Beneath Other Problems -- Beneath Effective Leadership -- The Deep Choice That Determines Influence -- People Or Objects -- Doubt -- How We Get In The Box -- Kate -- Self-betrayal -- Characteristics Of Self-betrayal -- Life In The Box -- Collusion -- Box Focus -- Box Problems -- How We Get Out Of The Box -- Lou -- Leadership In The Box -- Toward Being Out Of The Box -- Dead Ends -- The Way Out -- Leadership Out Of The Box -- Birth Of A Leader -- Another Chance. The Arbinger Institute. Originally Published: 2000. For too long, the issue of self-deception has been the realm of deep-thinking philosophers, academics, and scholars working on the central questions of the human sciences. The public remains generally unaware of the issue. That would be fine except that self-deception is so pervasive it touches every aspect of life. "Touches" is perhaps too gentle a word to describe its influence. Self-deception actually determines one's experience in every aspect of life. The extent to which it does that, and in particular the extent to which it is the central issue in personal and professional leadership, is the subject of this book. Leadership and Self-Deception, first published in the year 2000, became an international bestseller. Launched with no fanfare when Arbinger (and its work) was little known, the book generated tremendous word-of-mouth momentum. Sales of the book continue to grow at an increasing rate even today, and the book continues to appear on bestseller lists around the world, many years after publication. The book is currently available in more than twenty languages.-- Provided by publisher "According to the authors, people who are in self-deception live and work as if trapped in a box. Blind to the reality around them, they undermine performance - both their own and others'. The problem is, being in the box, they can't see that they undermine performance. Consequently, they don't change, and neither do their results. As Leadership and Self-Deception shows, this phenomenon occurs frequently in organizations. Most people spend much of their time stuck in the box and this multiplication of boxes is the root cause of most of the problems that impede organizational performance, accountability, trust, commitment and motivation."--BOOK JACKET. This phenomenal bestseller * over 700,000 copies sold * changes readers? lives and helps them transform their organizations. In this new edition, the text has been updated and revised throughout to make it even more readable and powerful and a new section has been added that details the many different ways that people are using the book. Explains why self-deception is at the heart of many leadership problems, identifying destructive patterns that undermine the successes of potentially excellent professionals while revealing how to improve teamwork, communication, and motivation. Reprint It was two months ago to the day that I first entered the secluded campus-style headquarters of Zagrum Company to interview for a senior management position.