Behind the Leader's Perception & DEFAULT MODE

I may have mentioned this before, I can't remember; my Myers Briggs personality type is ENTJ.  There are a lot of positives about this personality type and just about as many negatives.  I've taken the personality profile several times over the course of my life and, with a slight variation of the strength of each of the areas, the final result is always the same:  ENTJ.

I like that my personality is typically well adjusted to making decisions and taking stands.  I don't like that I am more committed to goals than relationships.  This list could go on and on.

One of the things that comes from this is the fact that I have an innate need to be perceived as competent, in fact that may be an understatement: I have an innate NEED to be perceived as EXCEPTIONALLY competent.  This can drive me to learn more and exhibit high performance attributes.  It can also undermine my motivation when it becomes obvious that I simply don't have either the skill, knowledge, or stamina to excel. 

A perfect example which I only understood in retrospect, was playing video games with my children.  In those early days we had a nintendo (first generation) game system and the children were quite young.  I could win easily and even enjoyed losing on purpose sometimes to build their confidence (I know you may not agree with this).  As the children got older, particularly the boys (no I'm not a chauvinist, my daughter just never seemed to have much interest in video games - ahhhhhhh!! now I see it - perhaps she suffers from the same affliction as do I!!) would begin to beat me more and more, no matter how hard I tried.  Finally it reached a point where I began to suspect they were actually letting me win sometimes to boost MY confidence.  At this point I began to find more and more reasons why I couldn't play until I stopped playing these games altogether  (we still played board games, etc.).

Let me bring this into the area of leadership.  Our personalities will often drive behavior which we attribute to one thing, which in actuality has its source in something else altogether.  When we don't understand this we are likely to make decisions contrary to our, or the organization's, best interests and when things go wrong be completely baffled as to why. 

I recently heard a quote which goes something like this: "Understanding others can lead to wisdom, understaning yourself can lead to enlightenment."

Now I'm going to describe DEFAULT MODE to you.  I made this up although I'm sure there is a psychologically correct term.  Default mode has two parts:

1. You will operate within the strengths and WEAKNESSES of your personality unless you consciously make an effort to understand and overcome those weaknesses.  When you make this effort you demonstrate enlightment and increased ability to lead yourself and others.
2. Even when you know and are attempting to overcome your weaknesses, under times of stress, weariness, or pain you will revert back to Default Mode unless you expend exceptional energy to avoid it.  Knowing this means being aware when any of the the terrible three (stress, weariness, and pain) are present and taking extra precaution to prevent them from derailing your control (enlightenment).  Figure out now how to de-stress when stress comes (and it will).  Figure out now how to get sufficient rest and protect it as much as possible.  Figure out now how to control your pain appropriately so that you can respond at the time of need.

This may be one of the most important things I know.