02/10/2024

How much energy do they have to fight for or defend the fact that 2 + 2 = 4 (the arithmetic axiom most people think of)? Usually they observe that they have very little energy to fight for the rightness of their belief. Why? From our perspective, it’s because they know they are right and don’t need to defend this law as though their identity or ego depended on it. Next, we ask the same leaders to bring to mind an “issue” that they are fighting to be right about at work or in their private lives. It doesn’t take them long to find one. When we invite them to notice the difference between their need to defend, justify, and explain why they are right about this issue and their need to defend 2 + 2 = 4, they often have an epiphany.

— Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership