The Ego Default
The ego default prompts us to promote and protect our self-image at all costs. It's a tendency that can turn even the most confident person into an insecure, defensive mess when they feel threatened.
Going back to The Godfather, Carlo Rizzi is a perfect example of the ego default at work. As an outsider to the Corleone crime family, he occupies a relatively low position in the social hierarchy. Full of pride and ego, he becomes increasingly frustrated by his marginal role, leading him to take some unforgivable actions.
That's just what happens in life sometimes - the ego default prods us to prioritize maintaining our self-image over achieving the best outcomes. Not all confidence is created equally. Sometimes it comes from a genuine track record of success, and other times it comes from the shallowness of briefly skimming some information online.
Our ego tempts us into thinking we're more than we are. Left unchecked, it can turn confidence into overconfidence or even outright arrogance. We get a bit of knowledge and suddenly we're full of hubris, convinced that everything seems easy. As a result, we take risks we may not even realize we're taking.
Unearned knowledge rushes us to judgment. We convince ourselves that low-chance events are zero-chance events and think only of best-case outcomes. We feel immune to bad luck - to the bad things that happen to other people, because of our newfound (and false) sense of confidence.
Confidence doesn't make bad outcomes any less likely or good outcomes more likely, it only blinds us to risk. The ego also makes us more concerned with maintaining or improving our perceived position in a social hierarchy than with extending our knowledge or skills.
Step 1
One reason people find it hard to empower others at work is that having them depend on us for every decision makes us feel important and indispensable. Having them depend on us makes us feel not only necessary but powerful.
Step 2
However, this position is often self-defeating. Slowly and then all at once we become a prisoner of the circumstances we created; more and more effort is needed to stay in the same place, and we approach the ceiling of brute force. It's only a matter of time until things break.
We're prone to being less concerned with actual greatness than with exuding the appearance of greatness. When someone steps on how we see ourselves (or how we want to be seen), the ego leaps into action, and we often react without reasoning.
Who hasn't found themselves in a similar situation? Someone close to you doesn't appreciate you the way you want to be appreciated. Perhaps they don't see how insightful you are. Or maybe they don't see how much you do for them. Desperate to satisfy the ego, either personally or professionally, you stop thinking and do things you otherwise wouldn't.
Our desire to feel right overpowers our desire to be right. The ego default urges us to feel right at the expense of being right. Few things feel better than being right---so much so that we will unconsciously rearrange the world into arbitrary hierarchies to maintain our beliefs and feel better about ourselves.
Most people go through life assuming that they're right . . . and that people who don't see things their way are wrong. We mistake how we want the world to be with how it actually is. We mistake how we want the world to work for how it does work.
Of course, we can't be right about everything all the time. Everyone makes mistakes or misremembers some things. But we still want to feel right all the time, and ideally get other people to reinforce that feeling. Hence, we channel inordinate amounts of energy to proving to others---or ourselves---that we're right.
To keep the ego default in check, be on the lookout for these warning signs:
- You're expending tremendous energy on how you are seen
- Your pride is frequently wounded
- You read an article or two on a subject and think you're an expert
- You always try to prove you're right and have difficulty admitting mistakes
- You have a hard time saying "I don't know"
- You're frequently envious of others or feel like you're never given the recognition you deserve
Confidence without humility is generally the same thing as overconfidence---a weakness, not a strength. Confident people have the strength to admit weaknesses and vulnerabilities, to acknowledge that other people might be better at something than they are, and to ask for help when needed.