Ego And Leadership

Tom Butler, Ph.D. / August 23, 2024
I Love It When I See Great Leadership
Last week I had the pleasure to do a Keynote for a group of educators gathered to collaborate on getting better at their craft. This group spent the better part of three days and evenings working on skills necessary to create the best learning experiences for kids. What a fantastic group!

What made the event a success was the leadership of two individuals…Dr. Pat Mulroy and Dr. Chris Davis. Pat’s superpower is to gather like-minded people together and encourage them to be authentic and vulnerable in their work by modeling those two attributes. Pat has the ability to get you excited about something that you didn’t even know existed before you talked to her. Meanwhile, Chris is a master at setting systems in place, allowing people to be successful. There is no one better at creating and implementing professional development experiences that GROW people. 

Working together, Pat and Chris feed off each other, and the people around them get better. Both of them realize that leadership is more than a title and that leaders must constantly learn, regardless of their title or time in their career.

Which got me thinking…

Dr. Mulroy and Dr. Davis have one attribute in common…and it’s an attribute that all good leaders possess.

They do not have a negative ego. A negative ego is one in which a leader allows their ego to prevent them from learning.

We know that from the day you step into a role that requires leadership, you are on a steep learning curve. I actually like the idea of “learning steps” better because it reflects the reality of what leaders face every day. 

In leadership steps, one is always growing, learning, and looking to improve themselves in some way. You learn something, plateau a little bit while you figure out the worth of the new learning, and then move on to learn something more. All of us know that there is no ending to the learning steps. We learn and grow our entire lives.

Some leaders get in trouble when they allow their egos to get in the way. As indicated in the red section of the graph above, these leaders learn and grow until something in their subconscious activates their ego. At this point, they self-sabotage by making excuses, not listening, rebelling against something, or simply doing the opposite of what needs to be done JUST TO SATISY THEIR EGO.

When a leader does not manage their ego, they are constantly being knocked back down to their original starting point. Oftentimes, these are the leaders who have moved into a new job and haven’t realized the shift in the skills they need to excel at the next level, or they simply move from job to job to avoid having to manage their ego.

What do you think of my theory?

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About Tom Butler, Ph.D.

I believe that public education is for the public good and that education should be uncompromisingly learner-centered. The New Learning Ecosystem points us away from the old model of education that does not serve kids well. All educators regardless of where they work can help lead and contribute to the New Learning Ecosystem.
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