The Three Levels of Leadership - Scouller Leadership Blog » Can The False Self’s Beliefs Motivate You?
Can The False Self’s Beliefs Motivate You?
After The Three Levels of Leadership came out in 2011, readers followed up with questions on leadership, leadership psychology and self-mastery – all of them interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I’m releasing my answers here as they supplement the “Three Levels” material and others may find them useful. Here’s the tenth in the series. I’ll post the others over the coming months…
Q10. Can the False Self ‘s beliefs motivate you?
“The short answer is yes…
Two Types of Motivation
You need to understand that there are only two basic forms of motivation. The first you could call “towards” motivation. The second is “away from” motivation.
- “Towards” motivation involves you moving towards a goal, a target, a purpose or an aim that’s important to you – one that reflects your true Self values.
- But “away from” motivation is about avoiding events, circumstances or results you want to avoid.
Can you see that “away from” motivation is driven by fear? And what’s the hallmark emotion of the False Self? It is fear. Yes, sometimes you will find pride, but the principal False Self emotion is fear. Thus, the False Self is very good at providing fear-based motivation.
An Example
Let’s take a practical example so you can see this mechanism in action…
Many leaders feel deep down that they’re not good enough for their role so they fear exposure as a fraud – being revealed as not good enough. So for them the experience of getting something wrong, making a mistake or failing is horrendous. Failure simply isn’t an option for them.
So now a person like this becomes attached to the opposite of failure – to achieving success in whatever way they define and measure success. Thus, he or she is motivated to attain whatever success means to them. In this way the False Self provides energy; it provides the motivation to act.
The Problem With False Self Motivation
What’s the problem you might ask? Surely, if it provides motivation that’s good enough, isn’t it?
Well, yes, it does indeed provide motivation. But it’s motivation tinged by fear. And thus the person with “away from” motivation is always frightened of slippage, of something going wrong, of missing the target.
So this person is always on his guard, always tense. There’s always a layer of nervousness and stress and this provides interference when the going gets tough – as it always does at times in organisational life – which can lead you to make poor decisions and behave unskilfully. That’s when your leadership presence is no longer there. That’s when those around you will sense your fear and guess what? Your power to lead will begin to slip, you’ll lose the regard of your colleagues (we used to call them followers) and gradually execution of your organisation’s key initiatives will start to slip.
For when you’re in the grip of the False Self you’re not choosing your responses to events or others’ behaviour, you’re simply driven by old patterns. But you’re pretending to be in control. And that’s not just inauthentic, it’s hard work. In fact, it’s exhausting.
A Never-Ending Treadmill
That’s not the only problem. You see, even if you achieve your target, if your mind is gripped by the idea that you’re not good enough, you will be on an endless treadmill. Because no success will ever be enough.
You have to keep running, you have to keep succeeding because otherwise you’ll be reminded of the belief you hold in Higher Mental Mind: that you are simply not good enough. And it’s deeply shameful, deeply painful, to hold a belief like this. So many people try to push it away by constantly succeeding, by constantly doing better than others. But it’s exhausting, it’s stressful, it is never-ending and it makes it impossible to lead from a position of real presence – it always threatens to undermine your mental and emotional resilience.
So yes, False Self beliefs can indeed motivate you. But the question is, do you want them to motivate you? Do you want them to be your dominant form of motivation? Do you want to be a victim of them? If you don’t, then I suggest you follow the path of self-mastery.”
The author is James Scouller, an executive coach. His book, The Three Levels of Leadership: How to Develop Your Leadership Presence, Knowhow and Skill, was published in May 2011. You can learn more about it at www.three-levels-of-leadership.com. If you want to see its reviews, click here: leadership book reviews. If you want to know where to buy it, click HERE. You can read more about his executive coaching services at The Scouller Partnership’s website.
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