Why ego?

I want to expand on the statement I made in my first post, where I said I believe that ego-driven actions are at the root of all our workplace issues. While our egos can show up in problematic ways at any point in time, I believe that the most dysfunctional and toxic workplace environments are those that continuously allow team members to act from the place of ego. In these types of environments, individuals are forced to take on additional labor that is not about the actual work itself. However, the actual work itself cannot be done without this additional labor.

This additional labor is barely ever recognized as such, nor is it compensated. If anything, this labor is normalized as part of the natural course of working with certain individuals and the cost of doing business within certain organizations. Further obscuring the actual dynamics at play are the often-touted euphemisms of culture, personality, and politics.

When I reflect on my time working in these environments, I remember:

• Being exhausted and burned out from the vast amounts of labor I expended trying to adjust to and survive the unpredictable relational dynamics and constantly shifting goalposts.

• Protecting myself from retaliation I sometimes received for telling the truth.

• Calculating and recalculating the odds that things could or would improve.

• Figuring out how to exit without damaging my future career prospects.

• Grieving the people and the work I left behind.

By the time I exited a workplace dominated by ego-driven actions, I had usually made multiple attempts to improve the environment, with little to no success. In retrospect, I also realize that I left those experiences carrying trauma from what I witnessed and endured. I also recognize how my own ego-driven actions contributed to the dysfunction.

So, what is so bad about letting our egos drive our actions? I have found that when we act from the place of ego, we tend to disregard the humanity of those who are at the receiving end, since our egos will always protect our self above everyone else. I have also found that workplace environments that incentivize ego-driven actions via their systems, structures, and policies are conduits of our broader social inequities (i.e., all the ‘isms/phobias related to humans), which are rooted on the false notion of inferior and superior selves and an us versus them dynamic. This fear-based falsehood has had catastrophic ramifications for our entire humanity and is being replicated within too many of our workplaces.

Constantly coping with and surviving someone's ego, let alone multiple egos, comes at an incredible cost to our health and well-being. We were never meant to live out our lives in perpetual survival mode and the science on high-effort coping, chronic stress, weathering, and deaths of despair clearly demonstrate this fact.

It would be easy for me to point fingers and shame others but that is not what I am here to do. I too have engaged in ego-driven actions that have caused harm to myself and others. So, what do we do? My call here is not for us to check our ego at the door (FYI: not possible), but rather, to engage in practices that actively check in with our ego. Practices that allow us to:

• Be aware of our ego and understand why it shows up.

• Discern whether there is a pattern associated with when our ego shows up.

• Understand the instances where our actions have caused extra labor and harm to ourselves and others.

• Pause before we act, so we can fully think through our actions and shift into purposeful action that does not solely center ourselves.

• Attend to ourselves and others when we cause harm and repair the harm.

• Heal the wounds that cause our ego to show up in disruptive and harmful ways.

• Connect to supports if we are unable to change or leave workplaces run by egos.

• Examine how our workplace systems, structures, and policies incentivize ego-driven action and institute necessary changes.

As you think about your workplace experiences, what are some examples of your own and others’ egos running the show? What’s the impact been on you and your colleagues? How would your work environment need to change so you can move out of survival mode? What practices have you found helpful to attend to your ego? What supports do you have in place?