The higher you go in the hierarchy, ‘being right’ becomes more important to you. Be it a corporate ladder or a political system or just family matters.
As you gain more experience, you become more confident that leads to more success. As you become more successful, you start imposing your thoughts, ideas, and vision on others. When that is challenged, usually by a subordinate or a person younger or less experienced, you tend to lose your mind. In many cases, this might lead to revenge, punishment, sarcasm, or ignorance that eventually poisons the atmosphere and impacts productivity.
‘Being right’ is an ego-centric behavior that causes more damages than benefits.
Getting this right needs continuous mental muscle building, as putting this into action at the appropriate time is a challenge, particularly when you are out of your mind.
To start with, you can do the following:
- Take a Pause: When you are challenged, you tend to protect your territory driven by your basic instinct. Restrain yourself, take a pause.
- Check your Hormones: In such a situation, your brain gets hijacked due to hormonal changes in the body. Cortisol that is also known as stress hormone is released that increases your blood pressure and heart rate. So, practice ‘abdominal breathing’ to restore your hormonal balance.
- Slow down your pace and ask a question curiously: Slowing down your speech minimizes your display of threat perception. Your natural tendency would be to ask a question to prove the person wrong, restrain it. Ask with genuine curiosity.
- Listen without judgment
When you practice these steps, you would open a floodgate of opportunities that will lead to better relationships, growth of knowledge, and unprecedented results.
Change the game!