Our ‘Shield of Pretence’
/Unfortunately, but quite understandably, as we grow up we are taught to modify and mould ourselves to the world around us. On one simple level this is fundamentally about our physical safety. Keeping your child safe as they learn how to navigate their way into a dangerous world, means instructing them not to do certain things that might put them in peril, and instructing them to do things that will keep them safe. It is no point being the most authentic version of yourself and dying early because you’d not been taught about the threats out there.
The problem for parents, and then for teachers, and then for leaders, is to really differentiate between what is a genuine threat to physical safety or health, and what is a threat to psychological safety. Sending your 5 year old child to school dressed to their own unique style, but very differently to all the other children, is not going to kill them. However it might open them up to bullying. Being different at school can be really difficult for a child, and parents are naturally very protective and very sensitive on their offspring’s behalf.
But often this turns into being over-protective, over anxious. Parents so want to save their children from any pain or discomfort, they often deny their children the opportunity to learn and grow from their own mistakes and misfortunes. And if the parents are themselves living a life of some anxiety, maybe for financial reasons, or down to family or relationship difficulties, or some mental health issues somewhere in the home or extended family, then the child will be subject to this dynamic – maybe even be the unwitting victim of it.
“Don’t you go showing off, now” is perhaps a familiar exhortation from many parents to their children. After all no-one likes a show off. Many children are brought up not to be themselves, therefore not allowed to find out who they really are – discouraged from being who they really are, and actively encouraged to conform and look like everyone else; the most successful versions of ‘everyone else’ of course, and so starts the other damaging dynamic. Constantly measuring ourselves against others is one thing, but when that involves a desperate desire to be better than others, it’s no wonder we have some screwed up people and some seriously screwed up organisations where competition is celebrated.
So many children grow up dealing with the shame of hiding who they really are, and dealing with the guilt of not being who their parents want them to be. We grow up living in pretence, building a solid shield around our Golden Core*. We get so much practice and feedback living in this space, and we spend so much time constructing the shield, that we simply forget what’s at our Core. We come to believe that the shell or shield we’ve built is real; is how we should be, and since being this requires constant effort and attention, we know no other way than to live with anxiety, shame, guilt and frustration. Since living with these unhealthy dynamics is painful, we develop ways of being able to ignore them, living in denial and developing a stunning lack of self awareness.
Our Shield of Pretence really becomes who we pretend to be - adopting the beliefs of others so that they accept us, being interested and motivated by being liked more than we want to be respected for who we are.
We pretend to be strong and confident. We pretend to like people we don’t. We pretend to believe the same things that everyone else believes. We pretend to be happy and content, when deep down we are not.. We pretend to be someone we are not – someone else.
And it’s bloody hard work. The amount of effort we have to put into maintaining this means we are lacking in time and mental capacity to challenge what’s happening to us.
The craziest thing about all of this is that everyone else is pretending too! Every interaction we have with another human being is with the version of that person that they are pretending to be! There is simply no honest dialogue going on, which is why most conversations you will overhear are really just meaningless drivel, and maybe why it is so easy for us to escape into the virtual or digital world where our avatar can perhaps be the representative of our Golden Core*.
And then we go to work……….and at work we learn very fast how things are done – what behaviours, attitudes, beliefs and strategies are acceptable and which ones are not. None of these guidelines are written down of course; even if our new workplace has a stated set of values or principles, it is unlikely that they will be used exclusively or even effectively (or even at all!) to guide employees. No, it is the unwritten guidelines we pick up on very quickly, by watching others and through the immediate positive and negative feedback we get to our initial actions. We learn the particular management speak and euphemisms of the company, and we watch as no one wants to ever make a decision. The culture infects us and causes us to behave contrary to our own core values – since we’ve come away from these anyway, we don’t really notice. And since we’ve lost a sense of true self, it is hugely attractive for us to be part of the Borg in our new company, and so we take on the cultural values and behaviours with relish.
So at work, we exacerbate the schism between our Golden Core and our Shield of Pretence, by adding a whole new level of corporate culture conformity.
When we connect with another person’s Golden Core, we connect emotionally with them and open up a channel whereby we can have a ‘core to core’ communication; verbal and non verbal. We build a relationship where we are not allowing fear to cause us to ‘play small’, and where we are prepared to show vulnerability; to expose our true self in all it’s glory and with all its messiness, to another human being.
And in our corporation, if we are the right person, in the right role, at the right time we instinctively connect our core to our company and to our individual role. We connect our personal integrity and our talents to the cause. Our communications internally then become an honest discourse between adult, expert, specialist professionals. Problems are identified clearly and solutions designed and executed.
*Read: Our Golden Core
Article Excerpted from “And the Leader Is… Transforming Cultures with CEQ” - by Gareth Chick
About the Author:
Gareth Chick is a 40 year corporate veteran with a global profile. His career has included hugely successful spells as CFO, CEO and Chairman in both public and private sectors, including private equity. What makes Gareth's experience unique is that he combined those executive roles with a part time career as a leadership trainer, researching psychology, neuroscience and psychotherapy to create leadership development programmes used now by many major global corporations. In the last 15 years Gareth has trained over 5000 managers and served as Executive Coach to over 200 senior execs including FTSE100 CEOs and Fortune 500 VPs. As Founder of Collaborative Equity LLP, “promoting corporate cultures and sustainable business models of shared ownership, shared responsibility and shared rewards", Gareth acts as consultant to many global leaders, specialising in first time CEOs and Start Up founders. ↠ find out more at ceq.com
