Outgrowing sensitivities

Kaiser, R.B. (2002, April). Outgrowing sensitivities: The deeper work of executive development. In Robert T. Hogan (Chair) Models of Executive Education. Symposium presented at the 17th annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Toronto, Ontario.

Just as in the world of sports, the inner game of executive leadership is pivotal. This paper develops this idea by describing how psychological wounds from the past sensitize executives to be anxious about getting hurt again. These vigilant dispositions—which are largely unconscious and invisible to the naked eye of onlookers—distort perceptions of organizational reality and lead to unnecessarily intense emotional reactions like anger, fear, and threat. In turn, this kind of emotional perturbation can throw off performance. A model is presented that provides a window into the world of private beliefs, expectations, and anxious concerns that often lurk beneath the counterproductive behavior of managers. Considerable attention is given to what development professionals can do to help their executive clients manage and, ultimately, outgrow the limiting effects of being hyper-sensitive to failure, rejection, dependency, and the like.

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DeeperWork(Kaiser2002).pdf

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