The Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box. Third Edition (Expanded). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. 2018.
Referenced in: Leadership Development Through Life Effectiveness
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
This is a widely acclaimed international bestseller that is now in 20 languages. At the time this summary was written, over 200 Amazon readers had given it a five-star rating. It is a story-dialogical presentation on the role self-deception plays in effectiveness in leadership and life. A major application is to look at the negative ways we view other people, inwardly, even if we try not to give indication of that outwardly. When we view others unappreciatively and condescendingly, perhaps unknowingly, we develop an inflated view of ourselves. This results in blindness to the ways we contribute to our problems, blaming others while we are oblivious to our own weaknesses. The more we stay “in the box” that elevates self and diminishes others, the deeper our separation from the liberation of humility and the joy or relating to others in their humanness. We can do this with anyone — spouses, children, co-workers, friends. This book helps you to see yourself more honestly, and others more humanly.
Toward the end of the book (179-180), the authors discuss five specific areas of application where the book may be helpful:
- Hiring — helps in applicant screening and hiring process, where potential hires may read the book and then engage in post-reading discussions to evaluate key characteristics of success that are difficult to assess in the normal hiring process.
- Leadership and team building — the degree to which one is in the box toward others has huge implications about that person’s ability to cooperate with and lead others.
- Conflict resolution — the one thing every party in a conflict is sure of is that the conflict is someone else’s fault. Resolution requires breaking through the blindness of self-deception and begin to consider their own culpability.
- Accountability transformation — in organizations or all relationships, once out of the box, people have no need to blame or shirk responsibility.
- Personal growth and development — getting out of the box improves everything in life — thoughts about others, feelings about oneself, hopes for the future, and ability to make changes in the present.
From the Publisher
Since its original publication nine years ago, Leadership and Self-Deception has become an international word-of-mouth phenomenon. Rather than tapering off, it has sold more copies each year since 2004 than it did in any of the first four years after publication. The book’s central insight—that the key to leadership lays not in what we do, but in who we are—has proved to have powerful resonances not only for organizational leadership, but in readers’ personal lives as well. “Leadership and Self-Deception” uses an entertaining story about an executive facing challenges at work and at home to expose the precise psychological processes that conceal our true motivations and intentions from us and trap us in a “box” of endless self-justification. Most importantly, the book shows us the way out.
This new edition has been revised throughout to make the story more readable and compelling. And drawing on the extensive correspondence they’re received over the years the authors have added a section that outlines the many ways that readers have been using “Leadership and Self-Deception,” focusing on five specific areas: hiring, teambuilding, conflict resolution, accountability, and personal growth and development.
About the Author
Arbinger is a worldwide institute that helps organizations, families, individuals, and communities solve the problems created by self-deception. The Institute is led internationally by Jim Ferrell, Duane Boyce, Paul Smith, and Terry Warner. Local managing directors guide Arbinger’s work in territories around the world. Headquartered in Woods Cross, Utah, Arbinger has international operations in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Israel, India, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Mexico, Canada and Bermuda.
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