5 Unfortunate Outcomes Of Self-Deception In Leadership

Have you ever misled yourself as a leader? Who’s willing to admit that? Self-deception is a damaging thing at the root of a lot of conflict.

We go through a process where we justify our false beliefs by blaming others; we control circumstances or people; and we deny the truth and our contributing role to the problem. It’s especially destructive at the top of the leadership food chain, where large, dominant egos dictate action.

If you’re in the role of influencing others, and are in conflict, think this through: Self-deception that goes unchecked is blinding to the true source of a conflict. Further problem-solving and brainstorming for solution will only make matters worse at this juncture. Lets look at the train wreck that self-deception creates.

5 Unfortunate Outcomes of Self-deception in Leadership

1. Camouflages the truth about oneself 2. Corrupts your view of others and your circumstances 3. Crushes your credibility and the trust others have in you 4. Inhibits your ability to persuade others 5. Hinders wise decision-making The extent of your self-deception will really determine how much your happiness and ability to lead others will be undermined. Is your performance, or those you oversee suffering? Then you may need intervention. But it takes a humble man with great self-awareness to admit standing in that space. How engaged and motivated are the people you influence at this point should clue you in.

Fortunately, having a good internal radar system (self-awareness, y’all) to recognize this leadership trap can get you out of trouble. You can start by sharpening your vision, resetting the desire for great teamwork and collaboration, redoubling your accountability, trusting those around you to do the work, speaking clearly what it is you want done without sending mixed messages, setting the course with clear direction without wavering (where do you truly want to go?), and last but not least….listen, listen, and listen some more to the people you influence. They may have all the answers you’re looking for.

You can then leverage your leadership strengths, view yourself and others more positively, and resolve resistant personal and professional relationship problems.

To your success,

Marcel - See more at: http://www.coachmarcel.com/2012/11/21/5-unfortunate-outcomes-of-self-deception-in-leadership/#sthash.4hn7FtM3.dpuf

If you’ve smelled the coffee recently, you’ve realized that men and women want and need different things in a relationship.

The assumption that your husband’s needs are the same as yours, for example, in how to be loved or treated, is what gets wives in trouble. We’re really two different species.

It’s pretty simple: met needs produce feelings of being loved, valued, and appreciated. Flip the coin, and unmet needs get you in the dog house.

What Men Don’t Want in a Marriage 1. They Don’t Want To Be Your Girlfriend

Many women will describe the ideal man as someone who is conversational, can open up and share their feelings. They long with deep sighs for the man who loves to talk about how their day went, and remembers all the important events and memories of life. I know this to be true. After my wife and I married, I was placed in the very uncomfortable spot of having to fill her girlfriend gap.

Well, over time we both learned that there was a big difference between “husband/wife sharing time” and “girlfriend sharing time.” The two are clearly not the same thing. The latter will allow two close women friends to deeply express their feelings in the most intimate and vividly detailed manner in a way that two men, if the prospect of such an encounter ever crossed their minds, would run away screaming “Mommy!!!” the other direction.

While I’ll admit with some pride that I’ve advanced light years toward bridging the two to offer my wife the space she needs to just listen as she processes, shares and–if stressed or overwhelmed, cries without me trying to fix her, I would never expect any masculine man to do the same with regularity…unless the marriage is on life support and divorce papers are being mailed in. Men just don’t make very good girlfriends, ladies.

To even think of the possibility that we may have to share our feelings when we get home after getting pummeled at work for that missed deadline or meeting-gone-bad, brings up chalkboard scratching noise in our heads. We’d rather stare in zombie-like state to ESPN Sports Center highlights every night than expound on the greater details of how our day went. The cave is where men decompress.

Even for those who have been trained by a life coach or counselor to access the “sharing” area of their brain for their wives’ sake, it doesn’t come naturally. Men generally don’t share.

If he does, smother your man now with kisses! He has developed a great skill contrary to his nature, and he loves you at such a deep level, he knows how much emotional intimacy means to you. That’s a man you can thank God for bringing into your life.

If he doesn’t, smother your man with kisses anyway to affirm that he is a man. Celebrate your love for him exactly the way God made him.

2. They Don’t Want to Have to “Work” on their Marriages

Have you ever asked your husband if he is satisfied with the marriage? Because most often, what you’ll find is that your dude is quite comfortable about the state of your relationship. To them, if there are no alarms going off and sirens blaring, the marriage is fine and lets keep it that way.

Women, on the flip side, may still look forward to the day when their deepest romantic yearnings and expectations are fulfilled. And the finger is pointing at the husband. There is a disparity here.

This doesn’t make men broken. Or out-of-touch. Or neanderthals. It just makes them…..men.

If you pay close attention, for the most part it is women who are unhappy in marriage. Look at the statistics: the majority of divorces are filed by the ladies. When was the last time you saw the husband go “Honey, I want to see a marriage counselor.” Usually it’s the woman who initiates counseling. It is often the wife who is perpetually disappointed, completely frustrated, and ultimately heart-broken. So the pressure is always on the man to have to change. Pressure than men don’t want.

But how many of these women will also look in the mirror and admit, “I have unrealistic, unreasonable longings and expectations about my husband?” The kind of unrealistic expectations that are now tearing their marriages apart. Got a mirror?

What happens instead if you, as wife, took all those unrealistic expectations about how he should treat you, or communicate with you, or romanticize with you, and symbolically shredded or torched them? You are still left with the man you married, who loves you despite all your flaws, cares and provides for you and your children, and would die on a hill for you. Would your perspective of your relationship change then?

It may have been a blind spot for you until now to consider that instead of expecting your man to fulfill ALL your romanticized, emotional needs, he may not be hard-wired by God to do so. Maybe he’ll fulfill some of them, but not all of them. The only Person I know who could fill those sandals was nailed to a cross.

The best advice I can give wives is to make some really solid friendships outside of marriage. Don’t let yourself end up in a marriage where you feel lonely and perpetually frustrated because your man won’t or CAN’T be your girlfriend. Fill the hole left by your female best friend, mother, daughter, sister, cousin by making new friends. Or if that’s hard for you to do, make an extra effort to maintain the friendships you had growing up, or left behind.

And men, this goes both ways. Get a small circle of weekend warriors to shoot hoops, go paint-balling, or camp out and connect on a deep, masculine level. Encourage your wife to have her special time hanging out with her girlfriends every now and then.

To your relationship success,

Marcel - See more at: http://www.coachmarcel.com/2013/02/22/what-men-dont-want-in-a-marriage-tips-to-avoid-driving-hubby-insane/#sthash.sK5bIars.dpuf

Take a good look at your love life. Is the spark between the sheets gone? Has your husband or wife lost his or her mojo? Did your sex life take a vacation and not return?

According to new research published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, women in a committed relationship report lower levels of sexual desire over time while a man’s desire stays pretty much the same. Not what the guys wanted to hear.

So, guys, relax. You are not at 100% at fault for her declining sexual desire. If your lady had a lower sex drive before you got hitched in the first place, there are several factors — biological, psychological and social, that I won’t get into here. And also consider that the sexual energy and excitement from those lustful first couple years of married life will decline as the deeper emotional bond, I hope, that you have developed with the love of your life over time has increased.

Yet, I have to get honest with the men. Listen guys, in my experience as both a twice-married guy, and my many years observing husbands as a life coach, I’ve learned a few things about women. And that is, you may be contributing to this problem, and it may be a big blind spot for you.

There are five things you may be doing under your roof and under the sheets that could totally turn her off. You know it, and I know it: You turn her off, and you can say buh-bye to your #1 love language.

1. Blowing Off Her Looks
Counselors, sex therapists, and relationship coaches all agree that married men often tend to stop noticing when their spouses looks pretty, and so much of a wife’s sexual desire is rooted to a sense of self-esteem — feeling valued by her husband. Looks is so much a part of it.


Wan to fix this? Then give her daily compliments, tell her she’s pretty, let her know you like how she looks in that new pair of jeans, or the shape of her calves when she steps into the high-heel shoes you just bought at Nordstroms. Compliment her new haircut. If she’s being proactive about losing weight, let her know you’ve noticed the difference. Cheer her on! Be her biggest supporter for every pound she loses. And compliment her often. Leave her love notes in the bathroom mirror, on the steering wheel of her car, on her pillow. Make her feel sexy. And mean it.

2. Making Her Wrong Flashback to the early days of your marriage. It took a while for many of you to get comfortable with the sacred practice of love-making, figuring out body and position dynamics, and releasing unhealthy expectations that came from your previous relationships.

Some sexual acts worked, others clearly didn’t. Over time, you’ve probably felt rejected because she didn’t respond the way you wanted her to respond. You may have given up trying to explore what worked and didn’t work, frustrated that your programmed approach to sex – foreplay, intercourse, climax, wasn’t flying. And that it was somehow her fault.

All the while, the pressure to make it right kept growing, tension built, things got awkward, communication eventually stopped, and you made an agreement in your head to believe that this is just the way it is. Accept it.


Wrong.

This is not the way it is. If you want to find your way back to the sexual intimacy of the first few years of your marriage, you need to take the lead in the dance, friend. Initiate conversation. Talk to her about what’s not working for her, and ask her how you can make it better on YOUR end. Own up to this as a 50/50 problem, and do everything you can to get the perspective you need to understand what’s going on from her side of the bed. You’ll find that the Dreaded Duo — guilt and shame, may be at work wreaking havoc on her self-worth. Rescue your wife from feeling bad about your sex life by stepping up and working together to bring this sacred act back to God’s original plan.

3. Forgetting Foreplay Men tend to put so much emphasis on the moments leading up to intercourse, but female desire doesn’t work like a light switch that flips on and off—it’s more like a dimmer. The greatest advice I can give you to have a rockin’ sex life is to practice small acts of physical affection — hugging, kissing, rubbing, massaging, nibbling, etc. that can get her in the mood. But don’t get antsy, and stop pouncing immediately on her girl parts like a dog to a treat, man! There are other areas of a woman’s body that are erogenous. Explore that prospect by asking her what she would like, and where she would like to be touched. Lastly, get this in your noggin’: don’t expect her to be immediately turned on. Be patient, and refer to #2.


4. Pressuring Her During the Act So many men worry about whether their partners are going to have an orgasm that they end up causing too much pressure on them, and what they worry about then happens–their women don’t have an orgasm! It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Get the intercourse part of your love-making out of your head, stay relaxed and focus on the playful parts of #2 — touching, kissing, holding and sensuality.

Release the pressure to perform. Just let things happen naturally without forcing it. Good sex is about connecting in bed, which starts well before the physical, and not how many orgasms can I give her, or get myself?

On the flip side, here’s a nice tip for you guys suffering from performance anxiety: Your wife will appreciate it if you stay calm, relax without worrying, and ask her to help you relax and initiate foreplay on you. Your little friend will salute at attention in no time!

5. Bringing Pornography into the Bedroom
Viewing porn to learn that cool new position you’ve dreamed about (one excuse I heard recently) is a lie, and nothing but selling out to fantasy with other women. This is the path to defiling the marriage bed, and choosing lust over sexual intimacy with your wife.

And if you’re trying to justify that using porn is good to stimulate yourself so you can perform better, watching it will only desensitize your brain. You will find sex with your spouse less arousing the more you watch because it’s fantasy. Using pornography puts your wife in a place she should never find herself in: competing with professional sex actresses for your sexual pleasure. What she’ll eventually realize is that she can’t measure up. It’s like asking you to constantly compete with other hot, studly, family men for your wife’s approval — other men your wife has made into a fantasy herself to be the perfect husband and provider. How do you like them apples?

But don’t take my word for it. Consider a joint study conducted by the University of Indiana and University of Houston. This study found that,

“Repeated exposure to pornography results in a decreased satisfaction with one’s sexual partner, with the partner’s sexuality, and with the partner’s sexual curiosity. There was a decrease in the valuation of faithfulness and a major increase in the importance of sex without attachment.” [read more] The study goes on to say that “six hours of exposure to softcore pornography is enough to destroy the viewer’s satisfaction with his or her spouse.” Six hours!

So lets say she said “yes” to your little experiment. Have you considered that deep down she might be doing it against her will? And ladies, if you say “yes” when deep down you mean “no”, you’re doing three things that are damaging to yourself and your marriage:

1. You are not being emotionally honest with yourself and your husband.

2. You are losing yourself in him, thus losing your own identity as a valued woman created by God for sacred sexual pleasure with a man 100% devoted to you, and you only.

3. You’re re-enforcing the path to a sex addiction in both of you.

I know of one married woman that falsely bought into the lustful requests of her husband that they view porn together. She complied but was never 100% comfortable. He now cheats on her consistently to get the “high” he feels from porn, and his addictive behavior has escalated to engaging in sex with prostitutes. His need for extreme stimulation with his wife started with soft pornography, and led him down a destructive path, as indicated by the research study.

So please get back in bed with the one you love, connect to her heart, and learn about her emotional and physical needs.  Listen, when you find ways to authentically communicate your deepest sexual desires, and then practice what both of you want in a way that honors the marriage bed, you will never, ever need porn.

To your relationship success,

Marcel - See more at: http://www.coachmarcel.com/2013/02/06/4-things-you-do-that-kill-her-sex-drive-change-the-title/#sthash.v9Gw1zv1.dpuf