Understanding the threat

Your self-image comes from many different assumptions that you’ve made about yourself. Here are just a few examples:

• “I’m an effective manager.”
• “I’m a good person.”
• “I care about my employees.”
• “I’m committed to my company’s success.”
• “I’m loyal.”

Not surprisingly, it’s probably important to you to continue seeing yourself in these terms. After all, few people like to view themselves in a negative light—as incompetent, uncaring, or disloyal.

This self-image may help you meet a need for self-esteem, competence, and appreciation from others. These are important needs. You can’t sacrifice them. But you can select appropriate strategies for meeting those needs and giving other people the chance to help you meet them.

“No one can make us feel inferior without our consent.”

—Eleanor Roosevelt

Despite our desire to think of ourselves in positive terms, we often view our self-image from an either/or mind-set: “I’m either loyal or disloyal,” “I’m either caring or uncaring,” and so forth. The problem with this mind-set is that it makes us less able to tolerate criticism and constructive feedback from others.

For instance, if a colleague says, “I was really disappointed when you didn’t support my proposal,” you might conclude, “He thinks I’m not a good person,” or “Maybe I’m not a loyal colleague.” Thinking that you are “disloyal” or “bad” is pretty difficult, maybe intolerable. You may practice denial instead—and shoot back with something like, “I did support your proposal; I can’t see how you’d say that!”

Other reactions to challenges for our well-constructed self-image include:

• Burying the feelings and resorting to generalizations, abstractions, and a detached manner: “Let’s calm down and establish precise standard operating procedures here.”
• Striking back at the other person defensively: “Are you calling me a liar?”
• Refusing to face the disagreement directly or to take a stand: “Oh, who knows what’s going on here ... Anyway, did you see Tom’s article in the newsletter yesterday?”

These reactions have one thing in common: none of them enables you to listen to constructive feedback and make the changes needed to improve the way you interact with others.

Handling the threats

Several strategies can help you effectively handle challenges to your self-image during a difficult interaction. For one thing, you can work to understand your self-image. List the assumptions that influence your self-image. Ask yourself which of these assumptions evoke the strongest feelings. These are the assumptions that will most likely trigger a feeling of threat to your self-image if they’re called into question during a disagreement. By anticipating that you might experience anxiety or defensiveness over these elements of your self-image, you may be better able to control those feelings if they do arise.

You can also adopt a “both/and” mind-set. Instead of assuming that you can be either competent or incompetent, remind yourself that you—and everyone else—are much more complex than that. Each person is a mix of positive and negative qualities, and no one is always anything. You’re probably competent at some things and not so skilled at others. It’s appropriate to feel good about many aspects of yourself and ambivalent about many others.

In addition, you can accept imperfection. Acknowledge that everyone makes mistakes at times. Everyone also has complicated motivations. For instance, perhaps you genuinely wanted to expedite a project by taking a delegated task back from an employee who couldn’t seem to handle it. But deep down, you also knew that this action would let you communicate your frustration—without having to experience an uncomfortable discussion. So, you had admirable and not-so-admirable motives.

Finally, you can find the need below the image. Remember that you are human, and we humans have needs. Here are some basic needs that we have in the workplace.

Helping others handle self-image threats

Just as you need to deal with perceived threats to your self-image during a confrontation, so does the other person. You can help him or her manage anxiety about self-image by raising the issue explicitly. For example:

• Admit your own self-image concerns. For example, “I tend to be sensitive to criticisms about my leadership style. But I know I need your feedback. So bear with me if I seem to be getting a bit defensive.” By openly acknowledging your own anxieties about self-image, you may make it easier for the other person to do the same.
• Ask questions about self-image. For instance, “I’m sensing that this situation is about whether you’re committed to this project. Is that how you’re seeing it, too?”
• View the other person as human, too. Remind yourself that he or she makes mistakes and has complex motivations. Acknowledge in your own mind that the other person is neither completely competent nor utterly incompetent, neither totally caring about the project nor completely uncaring, and so forth.
• Help others name the need that’s not being met. Take a guess at what’s going on below the surface. For example, “Pat, I’m guessing that you really want to get this project completed by tomorrow, that you’re a bit nervous about it, and that you’ve got a need for integrity here because you made a commitment to the team. Does that resonate with you?”

By acknowledging concerns about self-image and helping others deal with them, you can more easily discuss unproductive behaviors—and change them to improve the quality of your interactions.