In the podcast ‘Leading Professional People’, Laura Empson and Tony Hall explore crucial leadership questions facing professional organisations and their leaders.[1] At the end of the episode ‘Coming out of the psychological closet’, Laura Empson talks about the relationship between elite firms and so-called insecure overachievers. The following remark really stood out for me: “in psychoanalytical terms, the professional services firm becomes the ultimate critical parent”.[2] The reason why this statement struck a chord with me, being an insecure overachiever myself, is that it deals with the million dollar question: why? Why is it that many capable, ambitious and successful professionals continue carry around a sense of ‘not enough’, no matter what they achieve?
Laura Empson argues that this type of professional feels drawn to what the elite firms offer, i.e. a feeling of worth, recognition: “we (the firm) are the best at what we do and therefore, so are you.” That is a great feeling, but also daunting, because the flip side is that if you don’t live up to the firm’s expectations, you’re out and that means that the externally created sense of self will be taken from you. The love, like with a critical parent, is overwhelming but conditional. The competitive culture present in such organisations combined with the related rather abstract goal of having to be ‘the best’, adds to the pressure people experience.
This can go one of two ways and I have experienced both:
- people who feel that they are at the mercy of client demand, or what they perceive it to be, who aim all their efforts towards what they assume is required to be ‘the best’ and who feel weighed down by a fear of not pulling their weight, will work at the limits of what they can take, mentally and physically, and will be afraid to show or share what they see as their imperfections;
- people who want and actively choose a professional life style that evolves around excelling and feel good about it because of the pull they feel towards the intellectual, psychological and financial rewards brings, will thrive and motivate the people around them.
It is hugely important to start being outrageously open about these dynamics, because pressure comes with the territory and talking about what pressure can lead to – chronic stress or high-performance – and how this can be influenced is a game changer. In the end, as Laura Empson points out, there is no villain in this story. There is no one that pushes others to do things they don’t want to do. A complex mix of character traits, group dynamics, (perceived) client and market demands and organisational culture result in the risks and opportunities that are at play here.
High-performance teams are high-trust teams and trust requires being able to depend on one another. Getting this right can mean the difference between chronic stress (perceived threat) and high-performance (perceived reward). So, let’s get started! With CORE People you have the knowledge, skills and drive to make a change towards collective and sustainable excellence.
1 Laura Empson has been conducting academic research into professional organisations for 30 years, including into the concept of the insecure overachiever.
2 See also: ‘How personal insecurity is used to drive exceptional performance in elite City workplaces’ (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b0bkqy1l).