Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute is a powerful book that helps clients gain powerful insights that lead to breakthrough leadership shifts. I often have clients read it as part of their executive leadership coaching work.  The book is a quick read and written as a business story.  The concept is that when we don’t act on our initial sense or feelings, we deceive or betray ourselves.  When we don’t act, we go into the box, where we make up all kinds of things to justify our lack of action.  The justification influences how we think about ourselves (victim, unappreciated or right) and/or how we think about others (demanding, ungrateful or wrong).  Here is a diagram from Leadership and Self-Deception of how the betrayal and box works:

Graphic replicated from Leadership and Self-Deception, Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute.

A client received feedback from an EQ leadership 360° report that reflected that his direct reports wanted more time and direction from him.  At first, Mark the marketing leader thought that the people who worked for him were demanding and should be able to figure out their work by themselves.  He was annoyed that they interrupted his focus time to get his work done. After we read Leadership and Self-Deception, he immediately connected the dots that part of his job as a leader was to ensure there was time each day for his directs and to support their needs.  He had more compassion and was able to let go of his negative view, and “get out of the box” he held about his direct reports. He actually put weekly blocks of time on his calendar once he recognized that being available to work with them was part of his job.

The goal of using the Leadership and Self-Deception model is to help us be objectively at the table to contribute. This is what Arbinger calls the employment contract.  When we are in the box, we lose our objectivity for how we work and communicate with others.  It may sound like a simple concept; yet being able to recognize that you are in a box, and learning how to get out, can transform your work and life.