Leadership and Self-Deception Quotes

“Self-deception is like this. It blinds us to the true causes of problems, and once we’re blind, all the “solutions” we can think of will actually make matters worse. Whether at work or at home, self-deception obscures the truth about ourselves, corrupts our view of others and our circumstances, and inhibits our ability to make wise and helpful decisions.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Whenever we are in the box, we have a need that is met by others’ poor behavior. And so our boxes encourage more poor behavior in others, even if that behavior makes our lives more difficult.”
― The Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Living the material Don’t try to be perfect. Do try to be better. Don’t use the vocabulary—“the box,” and so on—with people who don’t already know it. Do use the principles in your own life. Don’t look for others’ boxes. Do look for your own. Don’t accuse others of being in the box. Do try to stay out of the box yourself. Don’t give up on yourself when you”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“The more people we can find to agree with our side of the story, the more justified we will feel in believing that side of the story.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Self-betrayal” 1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of “self-betrayal.” 2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted. 4. So — when I betray myself, I enter the box.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Self-betrayal” 1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of “self-betrayal.” 2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted. 4. So—when I betray myself, I enter the box. 5. Over time, certain boxes become characteristic of me, and I carry them with me. 6. By being in the box, I provoke others to be in the box. 7. In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in the box.”
― The Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“We provoke each other to do more of what we say we don’t like about the other!”
― The Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“There’s another lesson here, of course,” he said. “You can see how damaging an in-the-box leader can be. He or she makes it all too easy for others to revert to their boxes as well. The lesson, then, is that you need to be a different kind of leader. That’s your obligation as a leader. When you’re in the box, people follow you, if at all, only through force or threat of force. But that’s not leadership. That’s coercion. The leaders that people choose to follow are the leaders who are out of the box. Just look back on your life and you’ll see that that’s so.” Chuck Staehli’s face melted from my mind and”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Which brings us back to your question, Tom. In your prior job, when you were thinking that your old boss was a real jerk, were you trying to help him, or was this judgment of him really a way of just helping yourself?”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“What doesn’t work in the box 1. Trying to change others 2. Doing my best to “cope” with others 3. Leaving 4. Communicating 5. Implementing new skills or techniques”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“As usual, there aren’t enough last minutes.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“That night, I would have told you that the thing I wanted most was for Bryan to be responsible, to keep his word, to be trustworthy. But when he actually was responsible, when he did what he said he’d do, when he proved himself trustworthy, was I happy?” “No.” I shook my head in wonder at the thought. “You probably still would have been irritated, huh? You might have even gotten after him for squealing the tires.” “I’m ashamed to admit that I did something just as perverse,” Kate replied. “After he came in the door — having made it in time, mind you — rather than thanking him, or congratulating him, or acknowledging him, I welcomed him with a curt, ‘You sure cut it close, didn’t you?’ ” Kate sat down. “Notice — even when he was responsible, I couldn’t let him be responsible.” She paused. “I still needed him to be wrong.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“What must it be like to be the son of someone for whom you can never be good enough?”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“They’re all examples of self-betrayal — times when I had a sense of something I should do for others but didn’t do it.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“The bigger problem was that I couldn’t see that I had a problem.” Bud paused for a moment, and then, leaning toward me, he said in a lower, even more earnest tone, “There is no solution to the problem of lack of commitment, for example, without a solution to the bigger problem — the problem that I can’t see that I’m not committed.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“discover you’ve been in the box. Do keep trying. Don’t deny that you’ve been in the box when you have been. Do apologize; then just keep marching forward, trying to be more helpful to others in the future. Don’t focus on what others are doing wrong. Do focus on what you can do right to help. Don’t worry whether others are helping you. Do worry whether you are helping others.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“The bigger problem was that I couldn’t see that I had a problem.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“7. In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in the box.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“In summary, then, the myriad ways in which people have used this book and its ideas fall within five broad areas of application: (1) applicant screening and hiring, (2) leadership and team building, (3) conflict resolution, (4) accountability transformation, and (5) personal growth and development.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Oh, that this first-year guy messed up or something like that,” I said. “I would’ve found some way to make sure that he knew it wasn’t my fault.” “Me too. But that’s not what she did. She said, ‘Jerry, you remember that expansion analysis? Well, I made a mistake on it. It turns out that the law has just recently changed, and I missed it. Our expansion strategy is wrong.’ “I was dumfounded listening to her. I was the one who’d messed up, not Anita, but she—with much at stake—was taking responsibility for the error. Not even one comment in her conversation pointed to me. “ ‘What do you mean you made a mistake?’ I asked her after she hung up. ‘I was the one who didn’t check the pocket parts.’ This was her response: ‘It’s true you should’ve checked them. But I’m your first supervisor, and a number of times during the process I thought that I should remind you to check the pockets, but I never got around to asking until today. If I had asked when I felt I should’ve, none of this ever would have happened. So you made a mistake, yes. But so did I.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Then you understand how we live insecurely when we’re in the box, desperate to show that we’re justified—that we’re thoughtful, for example, or worthy or noble. It can feel pretty overwhelming always having to demonstrate our virtue. In fact, when we’re feeling overwhelmed, it generally isn’t our obligation to others but our in-the-box desperation to prove something about ourselves that we find overwhelming. If you look back on your life, I think you’ll find that that’s the case—you’ve probably felt overwhelmed, over-obligated, and overburdened far more often in the box than out. To begin with, you might compare your night last night with the nights that came before.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“think I’d prefer tomorrow morning.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“It’s my proof that others are as blameworthy as I’ve claimed them to be — and that I’m as innocent as I claim myself to be. The behavior I complain about is the very behavior that justifies me.” Bud placed both hands on the table and leaned toward me. “So simply by being in the box,” he said slowly and earnestly, “I provoke in others the very behavior I say I hate in them. And they then provoke in me the very behavior they say they hate in me.” Bud turned and added another sentence to the principles about self-betrayal: “Self-betrayal” 1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of “self-betrayal.” 2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted. 4. So—when I betray myself, I enter the box. 5. Over time, certain boxes become characteristic of me, and I carry them with me. 6. By being in the box, I provoke others to be in the box. 7. In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in the box.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“And that is, when I’m in the box, I need people to cause trouble for me — I actually need problems.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Kate leaned toward me. “What I need most when I’m in the box is to feel justified. Justification is what my box eats, as it were, in order to survive. And if I’d spent my whole night, and really a lot longer even than that, blaming my son, what did I need from my son in order to feel ‘justified,’ to feel ‘right’?” “You needed him to be wrong,” I said slowly, a knot forming in my stomach. “In order to be justified in blaming him, you needed him to be blame worthy.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Self-betrayal” 1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of “self-betrayal.” 2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“The lady who offered us her seat, on the other hand, saw others and the situation clearly, without bias. She saw others as they were, as people like herself, with similar needs and desires. She saw straightforwardly. She was out of the box.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Self-deception is like this. It blinds us to the true causes of problems, and once we’re blind, all the “solutions” we can think of will actually make matters worse. Whether at work or at home, self-deception obscures the truth about ourselves, corrupts our view of others and our circumstances, and inhibits our ability to make”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Merely knowing the material doesn’t get you out of the box. Living it does. And we’re not living it if we’re using it to diagnose others. Rather, we’re living it when we’re using it to learn how we can be more helpful to others—even”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

“Kate’s story raises for me an astonishing point, Tom. And that is, when I’m in the box, I need people to cause trouble for me — I actually need problems.”
― Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box