Unfortunately, the predominant flavor of the way we work in corporate America is still one of hyper-competitiveness, power over dynamics, and aggression. This is nothing new, but what is surprising is that despite the mindfulness movement bringing in empathy and kindness to organizations, as recently as January 2022, the MITSloan Management Review ranked toxic work culture as the #1 predictor of attrition in its study of “The Great Resignation.” Anyone with experience in the workplace – whether in enterprise organizations or in small- or medium-sized businesses – will likely have come across toxicity in the workplace, which we can generally characterize as behavior and culture that unconsciously produces:
* Leaders that utilize a “do as I say” approach
* Leadership that does receive employee input well
* Teams that are hyper-competitive to the point of losing sight of the overall well-being of the company
* Promotes short-term gains at the cost of long-term health
* Lack of psychological safety among teams
* Profits over people – seeing employees as pawns and/or means to an end
My own experience with toxic culture in the agency world didn’t come as any surprise. Being in new business development and pitching millions of dollars of revenue with C-suite leadership exposed me to various leaders, their teams, and their approaches. What I observed was that there was one factor that seemed to constantly contribute to arguments, stress, reduced productivity, and tension more than others – and that was blame. Blame culture is well-documented, and the latest neuroscience studies have shown that humans are hardwired to blame. A Harvard Business Review Article, “Blame Culture is Toxic, Here’s How to Stop It,” cites brain imaging research that showed the amygdala usually concludes that bad things happen on purpose and is very, very quick at making that conclusion.
While there’s been a lot written and studied on blame culture and strategies on how to fix it, our exploration of ego dynamics at work begins by questioning why blame is such a strong tendency in individuals and how we collectively and unwittingly contribute to toxic culture. If you ask any leader, it’s not likely that they are going around intentionally creating a culture of blame. So while there have been strategies and suggestions offered on how to create a blame-free work culture, not so much detail has been offered on the underlying causes of blame.
In order to do this, we need to break free of the language that we have traditionally used to describe work and turn to the arenas of psychology, spirituality, and ancient wisdom teachings because we will need the language of these fields to truly dig into the root of blame itself.
Why the Ego Is Compelled to Blame
As we’ve laid out in earlier podcasts and posts, ego develops from a loss of contact with our natural way of being, and each disconnection primarily falls into one of nine categories. This loss results in what we’ll call an “ego deficiency” – a sense that something is missing in us, some deep suspicion that we do not have something fundamental in order to function and thrive. This is sometimes described as an existential hole or a fundamental kind of emptiness. Whatever way we describe it, the consistent characteristic is always one of feeling deficient in some essential way.
The ego deficiency that is most relevant to blame characterizes this loss itself: Power. The use of “power” in this context isn’t our conventional definition, and this is an important distinction to make. We culturally think of power a possession of control, authority or ability to influence others. We speak of power in terms of power in relation to another – I have power over you. Or we think of power in terms of quantity – I have lots of power, which is to say I have lots of influence to make something happen. This conventional sense of power is used in relation to the physicality of our world. If I have lots of power, I am able to produce an effect that will have an impact in the physical world. If a car engine has lots of power, it is able to physically accelerate faster than one with less power.
The power we are referring to here is an innate kind of power and primarily one that gives us the ability to contact our essential nature. It’s impossible to talk about this kind of power without bringing in the spiritual dimension because ultimately, it is in this dimension that we have lost contact with, resulting in the formation of our ego. Power, as an inherent and intrinsic part of who we are, gives us a sense of strength and capacity. It is the confidence to engage in the challenges of our lives, not in a desperate way, like when we need to muster up some kind of “gung-ho” energy. Intrinsic power is the very capacity to stay in the moment and in contact with our spiritual nature, which is inherently relaxed, open, connected and secure. It can be expansive but not rigid, unashamed but not prideful. Power gives us the ability to be authentic in the face of difficulty with others and keeps us from being knocked over by other people’s opinions and judgments. In other words, intrinsic power stands alone. It simply and essentially is – and therefore cannot be measured or compared in the same conventional way.
However, the majority of humanity has lost contact with this intrinsic power. It’s important to recognize here that nobody has “lost” their inherent power – we have only lost our knowing of it. Somewhere in our early development, this intrinsic power was not mirrored or validated. Perhaps you were put down by your parents and were unable to be fully yourself. Perhaps you were harshly reprimanded when you felt this innate sense of power and expressed yourself fully. In other cases, some trauma with spiritual authority figures may have occurred that made you doubt your spiritual nature. Or even some religious messages may have completely disconnected you from the spiritual dimension of being.
Whatever way this disconnection happened, the result is the tragic loss of contact with the ability to stay with, recognize, be aware of, or contact the essence of being. We can call this spirit or soul, and when we lose contact, it is an excruciatingly painful experience of powerlessness, as if we were somehow torn from something innately good, supportive, and loving – and there was nothing we could do about it. Because this terrible powerlessness, we are left with an empty feeling of deficiency, which is where the ego comes in with its desperate attempts to fill that emptiness and reacquire some sense of power. The ego is like an ingenious band-aid that is perfectly molded and shaped to cover the wounds of the soul. It can never be the soul, but the ego does its best to attain some semblance of what we have lost contact with. The only problem is that while our soul is inherently whole, the ego is inherently wounded. In the case where we have lost contact with intrinsic power – our natural state, our essential self – the ego responds to the experience of powerlessness with two corresponding beliefs:
1) Someone or something is to blame for this powerlessness
2) There is no innate sense of power; you have to seize it
In the first resulting belief, the ego interprets powerlessness as a terrible crime that has occurred and someone is to blame. Someone is guilty of this heinous experience. If you attune to the felt sense of this experience, you’ll realize that this sense of being slighted is commonplace, and the instinctive reaction is to avenge yourself – which is exactly what the ego tries to do. The vengeance is intended to right some wrong that was done, and only when vengeance is satisfied will the ego rest. Of course, by the time we are adults, vengeful behavior has been conditioned and suppressed to varying degrees, but our ego by its very nature has this quality of wanting vengeance in it.
This leads us to the second conclusion that the ego makes about needing to seize power. If there is no innate power, then of course it makes sense to the ego that you have to acquire power when you can, and this leads to seeing the world through the lens of dog-eat-dog. Because of the loss of contact with the spiritual dimension, the ego views and experiences the world from its physicality, prioritizing the biological imperative to acquire, attract, and win. The world to the ego is isolated into separate and distinct objects without any connectivity or cohesion that the spiritual dimension provides – and what’s more, these separate and distinct objects are not inherently good or nice. You must show no mercy to survive. The ego sees reality through a filter of powerlessness, and so the ego interprets the world as cut-throat and unforgiving, where the overarching principle is “survival of the fittest.”
Compassion, love, empathy – the qualities that arise from the spiritual dimension become suppressed and more difficult to access. And besides, the ego has lost its contact with spiritual ground, and opening to qualities of the heart – the qualities of connection – will only open the door to experiencing the painful sense of powerlessness it has so badly tried to avoid.
Resulting Ego Behavior
This worldview ends up resulting in ego activity that is imbued with a kind of deep-seated anger and aggression, a steeling oneself against the world, which on an individual level can manifest as being the top dog at any cost. In extreme cases, the ego projects this onto God, the universe, and the world itself. God caused this powerlessness and must pay. The universe caused this powerlessness and must be held accountable. The world itself through its meanness caused this powerlessness and so I will take what is owed to me.
The core belief of this ego dynamic is that the world is unjust and I need to be strong to survive, and strength specifically means wielding power in the world. As a result, the ego also views others as pawns to get the power they want, which inevitably ends up making it difficult to be in relationship with others. This kind of objectification tends to dismiss another person’s value or uniqueness, particularly their feelings because they are seen as weak and an obstacle to feeling secure and protected.
The ego that has this predominant power dynamic also tends toward aggression, blame, and an overall lack of sensitivity. When we bully others or put others down, the unconscious inner experience can be traced back to the feeling of inner powerlessness. When we fail to consider others around us for the sake of accomplishing a goal, the unconscious inner experience is dominated by a belief that our survival depends on it and if we do not make it happen or make others do it, something bad will happen. There is no grace, no goodness, it is all up to us to make it happen. A hardness appears in these patterns because there is no room for softness, as the ego believes that it is the one to set the record straight, to make things right, and because of this view, the ego also dismisses vulnerability as a weakness and therefore ends up shutting down emotions and feelings in itself and in others.
At the individual level, this ego dynamic shows up in varying degrees. For those where this sense of ego aggression or “vengeance” is dominant, this may only appear in your expression as a kind of bluntness or boisterousness, perhaps only lacking a refined sensitivity or tending toward reactive anger. In extreme cases, the ego’s attempt at power becomes inappropriate and without limits, as we see in Vladamir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The ego on this end of the spectrum refuses to compromise, enjoying the capitulation of others because it supports a sense of its own power. It therefore uses aggression to intimidate and overwhelm others with intensity and loudness.
This post is a part of a series examining the ego dynamics resulting from a loss of intrinsic power and how we collectively contribute to toxic work environments. Please subscribe for free to stay updated on new content. If you’re interested in individual coaching sessions or leadership trainings for middle managers, please contact me at timothy@egolessleaders.com.
