How To Transform Relationships And Unleash Positive Results

Today brings the fourth edition of Leadership and Self-Deception, by The Arbinger Institute. Previous editions during the past two decades have inspired readers and taught them that to effectively lead our teams, careers, and relationships we must be honest with ourselves about who we are and what motivates us.

The book will show you how to identify self-deception and reverse its impact on personal and professional relationships—a critical skill in our polarizing times. The new edition of the book applies fresh insights into timeless concepts with a broader, more diverse set of characters.

Self-deception is the action or practice of allowing oneself to believe that a false or unvalidated feeling, idea, or situation is true.

“Self-deception is the most debilitating of organizational issues. This is because problems cannot be solved if the people responsible for the problems remain resistant to the possibility that they may need to change,” according to The Arbinger Institute.

Self-deception can inhibit your effectiveness and degrade your leadership. For example, as explained by TEDx speaker, Gregg Vanourek, self-deception can:

Limit your growth and potential since you are not facing up to your weaknesses.
Prevent you from seeing beyond your own opinions and priorities.
Lead to unethical decisions and behaviors, including justifying poor behavior, such as intimidation, harassment, or bullying.
Inhibit your leadership effectiveness and thus organizational productivity.
Lead to crises because you are in denial about problems and your own role in them.

Told through an engaging story that everyone can relate to, Leadership and Self-Deception, will show you:

How to identify self-deception in your career, company, or community.
How self-deception can blind us to our true motivations and sabotage our outcomes.
How an Outward Mindset can transform your personal and professional outlook.

“Once we see ourselves clearly, we can navigate complex human interactions and transform to create positive change,” explains The Arbinger Institute.

Today, The Arbinger Institute shares these insights with us:

Question: Why do you think the book has resonated so well with readers since the original edition was published in 2000?

The Arbinger Institute: Would you brave a look into a mirror that exposed your worst behaviors but offered a path for transformation? Leadership and Self-Deception is that mirror! This book has connected with audiences for decades because it invites readers to examine their motivations and perspectives, serving as a timeless resource for anyone looking to improve their leadership skills and interpersonal connections.

Question: Why is the book's storytelling approach so effective?

The Arbinger Institute: This narrative uses real-life examples and relatable characters inside a fictional, easy-to-read narrative to fearlessly expose the ways we deceive ourselves. In short, it shines a spotlight on our blind spots. Using relatable stories, it reveals how self-deception hinders our success. But it's not just about exposing problems; it offers practical solutions. The book equips readers with tools to overcome self-deception, build stronger connections, and lead in a way that others want to follow.

Question: Tell us more about the benefits of participating in the Arbinger Book Club.

The Arbinger Institute: The Arbinger Book Club is your chance to connect with fellow readers and delve deeper into Leadership and Self-Deception’s applicable concepts and approaches that will change the way you live and lead. It's an opportunity to learn from others, challenge your own thinking, and gain a deeper understanding of how to create positive change in your personal and professional life. Join us for stimulating discussions, shared learning, and a supportive community of like-minded individuals.

___

The Arbinger Institute is an international training, consulting, and coaching firm that specializes in conflict resolution and peacemaking—whether in families, in organizations, or between communities or nations.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

Leading With GRIT

Feelings of being stuck, overwhelmed and frustrated plague too many of our workplaces says Laurie Sudbrink , author of the new book, Leading With GRIT . So, drawing on her over 20 years of coaching a wide range of organizations, colleges and Fortune 500 companies, Sudbrink provides in her book a road map to improve individual and organizational health . That road map includes teaching readers the principles of GRIT : Generosity Respect Integrity Truth Laurie Sudbrink "It is not only the concepts of GRIT, but how they are combined, that make them so effective," shares Sudbrink. Divided into three parts, Part I of the book is geared toward the individual, and is foundational to your success as a leader. Part II focuses on communicating with GRIT -- making communication easier, more enjoyable and more productive. Part III is how, in our role as leaders, we apply and sustain GRIT in the workplace, creating systems that help keep everyone on track....

Nelson Mandela Leadership Quotes

Here are my favorite Nelson Mandela leadership quotes: "Lead from the back--and let others believe they are in front." "The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall." "It always seems impossible until it's done." "I like friends who have independent minds because they tend to make you see problems from all angles." "I've learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." "Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."

7 Keys For Building A Great Business

When you start reading Mark Thompson’s and Brian Tracy’s book, Now…Build a Great Business! , you may feel like you are reading 200 pages of Blog posts, but the bite-sized approach to providing tools, practical steps and ideas, rather than theory, is precisely the authors’ intended approach. The book thoroughly explains the seven keys for how to achieve business success : 1. Become a great leader 2. Develop a great business plan 3. Surround yourself with great people 4. Offer a great product or service 5. Design a great marketing plan 6. Perfect a great sales process 7. Create a great customer experience You’ll find a checklist at the end of each step (each chapter) where you can write down your action plan for applying what you’ve learned. Particularly interesting is the chapter on strategic planning , where the authors recommend you should ask yourself these important questions before you act to create or reinvent the direction of your organi...

Your 2026 New Year's Resolutions Check-in

Yikes. It's nearly August. Hopefully, you've mastered or are achieving good progress with your New Year's resolution(s) for 2026. If you need another resolution to tackle this year or haven't yet selected one, now is a good time to review this list below. New Year's Resolutions for leaders : Don't micromanage Don't be a bottleneck Focus on outcomes, not minutiae Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes Assess your company's strengths and weaknesses at all times Conduct annual risk reviews Be courageous, quick and fair Talk more about values more than rules Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance Constantly challenge your team to do better Celebrate your employees' successes, not your own Err on the side of taking action Communicate clearly and often Be visible Eliminate the cause of a mistake View every problem as an opportunity to grow Summarize group consensus after each decision point during a meeting Pr...

Daily Intentions For Leaders

Everyone can benefit from the book, Dear Friend , which features bite-sized, daily notes for contemplation, inspiration, connection, and clarity. Busy and stressed business leaders can particularly benefit from the 365 profound, heartfelt reflections from author Michelle Maros , founder of Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life and cohost of the podcast, Life Happens with Barb and Michelle . Dear Friend invites readers to go deep and use the notes as a daily practice that compounds over time, nurturing strength, resilience, and clarity. In just a few minutes each day, this book will offer you a daily reprieve when you feel burned out, beaten down, or overwhelmed by the strains and stresses of modern life. The heart of Dear Friend began in the quiet mornings Michelle shared with her mom, Barb. Every day, they would sit together, reading affirmations or passages from Barb’s beloved books. These small rituals—simple but powerful—set the tone for each day, grounding them in g...

Six Leadership Actions To Leverage Employees' Differences To Strengthen Teams

The new book, All The Difference: Six Leadership Actions To Bridge Perspectives, Strengthen Teams, and Create Value , teaches how leaders can turn their team's individual differences into deeper trust, greater creativity, and winning results. “The greatest risk of unmanaged difference isn’t conflict: it lies in the ideas, insights, and opportunities that may never surface,” explain the book’s authors, Susan MacKenty Brady , Stuart D. Kliman , and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Leslie C. Smith . They suggest that you look around your team to fully see people with different communication styles, perspectives, cultural norms, and capabilities. These differences are expressed in all kinds of ways, such as casual gestures in a meeting, a colleague's opinion on a current event, or an intense work style. Often, those differences can lead to friction, even conflict. You may try to manage around them. But, for you and your organization to fully leverage the strengths of your team’s diffe...

Change Is Inevitable. Change Is Good. Embrace Change.

Change is inevitable. Change is good. Help your employees and team learn to embrace change. Here are some solid insights from Dr. Rodger Dean Duncan 's (Liberty, Missouri) book, Change-friendly Leadership -- How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performance : The kind of behavior change that results in lasting (sustainable) change must accommodate people's feelings--feelings that involve trust, confidence, passion, and all those other intangible but very real things that make us human. It's often the stress that people resist, not the change itself. Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights ( Pauline R. Kezer ). A transformational leader focuses primarily on initiating and "managing" change. He/she influences people to improve, to stretch, and to redefine what's possible. It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive t...

How to Be a Leader – 9 Principles from Dale Carnegie

Today, I welcome thought-leader Nathan Magnuson as guest blogger... Nathan writes : This is it, your first day in a formal leadership role. You’ve worked hard as an individual contributor at one or possibly several organizations. Now management has finally seen fit to promote you into a position as one of their own: a supervisor. You don’t care if your new team is only one person or ten, you’re just excited that now – finally – you will be in charge! Unfortunately the euphoria is short-lived. Almost immediately, you are not only overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a team, but you quickly find that your team members are not as experienced or adroit as you. Some aren’t even as committed. You find yourself having to repeat yourself, send their work back for corrections, and staying late to fill the gap. If something doesn’t change soon, you might just run yourself into the ground. How did something that looked so easy ...

How To Lead In An Era When Everything Is Being Displaced

Today, leaders are caught in a cascade of contradictions. The technology that promises unprecedented capability also delivers unprecedented doubt. Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes everything faster, cheaper, and more capable. It also makes the most fundamental question of leadership unavoidable: what are humans actually for? You did not choose this moment. But you are responsible for who you and your organization become in it. In Re-Placed: Answering The Call Of Leadership In The Age Of AI , leadership strategist and CEO Kari Zeller offers something rare in the AI conversation: a leadership book that starts with the human, not the technology. “The arrival of artificial intelligence doesn't have to displace us,” explains Zeller. “But it will, unless we learn to re-place ourselves first—to consciously reposition who we are, how we lead, and where we create value in a world where intelligence is no longer ours alone.” “Being re...

The Science And Secrets Of High-Performing Teams

Ron Friedman ’s new book, Superteams , is the best book about teams and team building that I have ever read and have reviewed on my blog. It’s all about what the best teams do differently. It’s packed with counterintuitive insights, surprising science, and real-world lessons "from the most comprehensive study of elite groups ever conducted" reports Friedman. Read through it once and then keep it handy to refer to repeatedly. The 50-plus strategies for how a team does its best work are invaluable. Friedman surveyed thousands of teams and pinpointed the precise habits that separate the best from the rest. He reports that “the results upend everything we think we know about teamwork. It turns out that the most successful teams aren't the ones that collaborate most, get along best, or put in the longest hours.” What really sets them apart, according to Friedman, is the way they: Manage their energy and attention. Bring out the best in one another. Keep improving...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog