Jessica Tracy: The Impact of Pride on Authentic Leadership

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Jessica Tracy, author of Pride: The Secret of Success shares her perspective on the impact of pride on success, leadership and why all leaders are vulnerable to the darker side of pride.

Pride: The Secret of Success is a must-read for new, emerging and established leaders, and anyone in a position to choose a leader, whether it’s in corporate, community, political or the self help world.

Conversation highlights:

Jessica Tracy explains the two types of pride: authentic and hubristic pride

• How the self-conscious emotions of pride, shame, embarrassment and guilt influence our identity.
• The difference between authentic pride and hubristic pride.
• Pride is not just one thing. How the two types of pride create two different types of leadership.
• Is pride a sin, or is it healthy and adaptive? Jessica Tracy’s scientific view of the two conflicting types pride: It’s OK to feel pride, but it’s important to monitor which type of pride you feel.
• Why having a healthy sense of pride makes it easier to be successful.
• How “faking it until you make it” can lead to self-doubt and be a recipe for more hubris.
• Why praise can be addictive.

Pride and Leadership

• Why it’s difficult to discern the difference between an authentic prestigious leader and a dominant narcissistic leader without contextual information.
• Donald Trump as a fantastic example of someone who regularly conveys hubristic pride and grandiosity.
• The surprising truth about dominant leaders and uncertainty vs prestigious leaders and how people feel in their environment.

Pride and Narcissism

• The relationship between pride and narcissistic behavior.
• The grandiose charmers and the malignant entitled: two very different kinds of narcissism
• The role of shame in narcissism.
• The Hubris Trap: Narcissism is a continuum. Everyone varies in how narcissistic they are as a character trait.

Pride and Success

• Pride is essential to success.
• Why human nature includes this emotion that makes us feel good about our identity.
• Dean Carnazes as an example of life change motivated by noticing a lack of pride.

Dr Jessica Tracy’s advice for new, emerging, and established leaders

1. Let’s get rid of the stigma surrounding pride. The idea that we should avoid feeling pride is not right.
2. Think about and understand the difference between authentic and hubristic pride. Authentic pride is about finding something that is meaningful to you and then working hard to attain that thing.
3. If you want to continue feeling authentic pride, keep earning it. Find ways to contribute. If we’re doing something that makes us feel good about ourselves, chances are it’s contributing to society.

Jessica Tracy, PhD is a Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia where she is the Director of the UBC Emotion and Self Lab. The research at the Lab is focused on the place where self and emotions meet – the self-conscious emotions of pride, shame, embarrassment and guilt. I first became aware of Jessica and her work when I chanced upon a live interview she did during the hardcover launch of her ground-breaking book Take Pride: Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success. It was literally a “stop the car!” moment, as I pulled over to take notes. Take Pride has just been re-released in paperback with the new title Pride: The Secret of Success.

Mentioned in this episode:

Dr Jessica Tracy’s book Pride: The Secret of Success

Follow @ProfJessTracy on Twitter

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