How to Achieve a Comfort Level When You Feel Uncomfortable
As you start asking questions of yourself and examining your motivations, you’re going to find yourself operating outside of your comfort zone. Tony’s journey to self-awareness brilliantly illuminates the zigzag nature of the journey. After all his work with Dr. Melfi and his introspection, Tony sometimes learns things about himself that make him uncomfortable. For example, Tony realizes one of the root causes of his blackouts is when he’s near meat. He suddenly remembers that he first saw his father use violence by chopping off the finger of the butcher who was behind in his loan payment. This is a searing memory, but because he remembers, Tony is able to manage his blackouts.
You should also be aware that you’re going to encounter criticism for your willingness to look inward and explore your feelings. In every organization, you’ll find people who view selfawareness as irrelevant or who are threatened by those who are open and reflective. You probably know at least a few people in your company who scoff at leaders who think before they act or who are willing to share their weaknesses with others. Even if others don’t criticize you, you may criticize yourself. I’ve known leaders who have been seeing an executive coach, and a number of times during the process they’ve questioned their own willingness to reveal fears and flaws. They’ve been conditioned to believe that revealing anything about themselves is taboo.
Consider Tony’s conditioning. In Tony’s family, expressing feelings (besides anger) was a mortal sin. Revealing secrets could get you killed. When he first starts seeing Dr. Melfi, Tony is worried that if word gets out, he’ll be viewed as weak and that this knowledge might give others the impetus to remove him from his position. Over time, Tony voices other self-doubts about his desire to understand why he does what he does. He fears that he doesn’t have everything under control—that he may be making a mistake by learning about the "monster" that lurks within. Early on, Tony asks Dr. Melfi, "What happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type? That was an American. He wasn’t in touch with his feelin’s. He just did what he had to do." In essence, he is questioning why Gary Cooper, a classic hero, could avoid being introspective and he can’t. He wants to know why everything has to be so complicated. He questions the validity of therapy and whether it has any practical application in his life.
Many leaders I have worked with think similarly to Tony and harbor doubts about the value of self-awareness, especially as it applies to leadership effectiveness. One leader, a top executive named Jane, viewed coaching with great hostility. Jane’s business heroes from a previous generation were similar to Gary Cooper. Though they might not have been the strong, silent types, they were loathe to let anyone they worked with know them well. They also would never admit to spending time reflecting on how their personal demons and desires impacted their leadership or management behavior. As a result, Jane felt that leadership was simply about doing your job to the best of your ability and not having to worry about your emotions or the emotions of others. She was an advocate of leading "naturally"; she said that leadership should be instinctive and not something that you have to work at. Jane was threatened by her emotional makeup, though she didn’t realize this fact at first. Consequently, when she finally started working with an executive coach and learning about herself, she fiercely resisted what she learned.
You may also encounter some resistance to self-awareness from people like Jane or from your own internal guardian. At times, Tony, too, runs from his self-discoveries. On more than one occasion, he has told Dr. Melfi he’s not going to see her anymore or has furiously denied what he has learned about himself. At the end of the most recent season, Tony has told Dr. Melfi he’s finished with therapy, in part because he is having trouble handling his glimpses into the dark night of his soul.
Tony’s denial always gets him in trouble; don’t fall into this same trap. When Tony is at his best, he is thoughtful and willing to trace his behavior back to the past, sharing experiences with Dr. Melfi that he shares with no one else. He is also very resilient; you should try to develop this same resiliency as you become more aware of who you are and how this impacts those you work with. When something important is revealed—when you experience an epiphany about why you haven’t received a promotion in the past two years or why you have so much trouble working on a particular team—keep the following checklist in mind:
- Determine if you automatically denied what you’ve just learned; did you reflexively tell yourself that this couldn’t be true?
- Ask yourself if you immediately blamed what you learned on someone else; did you find a scapegoat for a problem that you’re responsible for?
- Analyze whether you fell into the trap of dismissing the value of self-examination; did what you learn about yourself scare you so much that you found it preferable to dismiss self-awareness as a useful tool?
- Recognize when you’re lying to yourself to get rid of uncomfortable feelings; did you dismiss a truth about your behavior because it made you feel so uneasy?
One of the hallmarks of leaders such as Tony is their internal strength. At his best, he can absorb painful truths about who he is and use this information to adjust his behavior. He doesn’t become paralyzed by what he learns about himself nor does he become sidetracked in rage (at least not for long). Instead, he wrestles with the truths about himself and uses these truths to become a more effective boss.
I realize that self-awareness isn’t always an easy goal for a leader within an organization. Fortunately, Tony also recognizes the difficulty of achieving this goal. If he were ever to author a article called Tony’s Guide to Executive Self-Awareness, he might include the following tips.
Introspection ain’t for the faint of heart. I’m not a touchy-feely guy, and getting in touch with your feelings is a lot harder than getting in touch with your articleie, for instance. Expect to run into some painful memories and absorb some tough feedback. But you know what? Self-awareness makes you a more authentic boss, and if there’s one thing people respect, it’s a boss who isn’t a phony.
Don’t get down on yourself ’cause you’re less perfect than you thought. The more you learn about who you are, the more you’ll realize that you fall short in certain areas. This is a tough one. In my life, everybody thinks I have all the answers, and maybe I thought so too, but now I know what I don’t know. Because I’m aware of my limits, I can call on others who have the expertise I lack.
Take responsibility for who you are. Instead of facing the truth, you’re going to be tempted to shift the blame and make excuses for the messes you create. Don’t do it. You want to be a made man in your organization; you got to show that you’re a stand-up guy. Whiners, excuse makers, and finger-pointers don’t get ahead, and, even worse, they don’t learn from their mistakes. Look, I could blame my mother for all my bad traits—she deserves it—but it won’t do me any good.
TONY ON THE NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONE’S ACTIONS
"I bring this shit on myself."
Take a blood oath to change. None of this self-awareness stuff is any good unless you do something about it. Just knowing that you beat up on your employees because your father beat up on you isn’t worth squat unless you can do something with the knowledge. Maybe understanding that you smack Joey because your pa smacked you will make you more conscious of this tendency, so when Joey screws up an assignment, you won’t smack him—or at least you won’t smack him so hard.