Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
Join James and Coby from Roman 3 as they diagnose issues and prescribe solutions to today's most important workplace challenges.
Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
How Dangerous Does Self Preservation Become at Work?
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This episode touches on the themes of Strengthening Culture and Developing Leaders.
In this episode, we explore the different sides and faces of self-preservation. When built as a necessity due to a lack of confidence or self-protection, it can become incredibly toxic and be the catalyst for some of our worst workplace problems.
Our prescription for this episode is to build real confidence in your work and leadership. If you are looking for a place to start, we suggest learning more about our Integrity Leadership framework.
Past Episode Referenced:
S4 E3: How Do I Fix A Competitive Or Hostile Team Culture?
S4 E14: Leadership Tips: "Yes, if", Listening/Hearing, Balancing Self-Preservation
S4 E9: What Is Some Practical Psychology For The Workplace? [PART 3]
Integrity Leadership Episodes:
S1 E26: How Do You Effectively Lead And Manage Your Former Coworkers?
S1 E29: Leading With Integrity, HR Processes, Performance Management - Answering Listener Questions
S2 E23: Can I Teach Myself To Become A Better Leader?
You can learn more about Integrity Leadership here: https://academy.roman3.ca/knowledge-suite/integrity-leadership/
Here is the article that was referenced about RTO: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/22/opinion/office-work-wfh-bosses.html
About Our Hosts!
James is an experienced business coach with a specialization in HR management and talent attraction and retention.
Coby is a skilled educator and has an extensive background in building workforce and organizational capacity.
Send us a Message! (But we can’t respond, so feel free to email us at info@roman3.ca)
For a little more on our ideas and concepts, check out our Knowledge Suite or our YouTube Channel, Solutions Explained by Roman 3.
Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.
[COBY]:Did we lose a patient?
[JAMES]:No, that's just my lunch.
[COBY]:Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby, he's James. And let's get started with a question. How dangerous does self preservation become at work?
[JAMES]:well, I mean, the simple and obvious answer is very. I mean, as with most things, self preservation in and of itself is not inherently bad. The problem is when it becomes our default operating model at work. Right. we've talked about self preservation in a number of episodes over the years, and we talk about it a lot as one of the deaths of leadership. But I think where I would like to take our conversation today is in a little bit of a different direction, and focus maybe more on the damage self preservation can have operationally, relationally, and psychologically.
[COBY]:Yeah, because, I mean, it is something that's important to kind of be. Be clear that self preservation is normal. Right. I mean, it's something that, you know,
[JAMES]:we all do it at all times. We. And we need to take care of ourselves and look out for our own best interests.
[COBY]:Yeah. I mean, like, we're wired to make sure that we, that we're taking care of ourselves and that we're preserving our safety, we're preserving our place, and all that kind of stuff like that. That's. That is built into our. Our cognitive structure. I mean, it's a normal thing.
[JAMES]:It's just the role of leadership requires a different mentality. Right. The role of leadership and the way that we approach leadership, the way that we talk about leadership, the way that we build frameworks around leadership are at its heart, leadership is about empowering those around you. Right? yes. And self preservation gets in the way of that. And that's why it's often such a damaging leadership trait, is that if you are focused only on preserving your own status, preserving your own comfort, then you are not focused on preserving the needs of others, preserving the operational needs that the company requires of you in order to meet operational targets. Like, it becomes a, filter lens through which people make bad choices.
[COBY]:Well, the thing is, is that like a. A workplace team, like. Like a, employees in an organization, there's a. There's a symbiotic relationship. Right. I mean, like, one employee, you know, is not a standalone island and that, you know, they. They have a role, they have a purpose, they have a function, they. Their work impacts other people's work. And. And it's all. It's all connected and it's all related. And this is what happens when self preservation becomes something that a leader or an employee can, can almost like focus on that they can end up almost like weaponizing it. And it becomes an actual real threat to the culture, to the psychological health and safety of your co workers, to performance and even kind of the longevity of the organization. Because often a lot of stuff we talked about with like in past episodes we talked about like strongholds and silos and stuff like that. A lot of that can come from this place of self preservation, becomes the unspoken law of the land. And that's when a lot of these majorly toxic, you know, like hostile workplaces end up kind of coming from, is from that level of threat caused by sometimes weaponizing self preservation.
[JAMES]:And I'm I'm glad you brought up the, the stronghold piece because that is a classic example of group self preservation. Group preservation. Right. And taking the self preservation away from just the individual and trying to just. I'm going to protect my department against all of the external threats. Right. And those external threats become your colleagues in other roles in other part, in other parts of the organization, in other departments. And that's how strongholds are created and that's how this infighting happens. And the problem with all of this is that as soon as one person does forces other people to do it. Especially if you're a manager, if you are a manager or a leader and you are really just looking after your own self interest, what you are broadcasting to everyone else, everyone on your team is that the only person who's going to look after you is you. So get yours and insert another word ah for everybody else.
[COBY]:Right, right.
[JAMES]:Like it, it, it is a very toxic and contagious problem.
[COBY]:Well, I mean sometimes it's a matter of like, you know, again what we're gonna. What's gonna be interesting is that I think you listening, you may have a very kind of like clear mind and what self preservation looks like in the workplace. We're actually gonna go into a number of different things that you may not have thought, thought that's what self preservation looks like. To kind of show you the, the, the depth, the depth of it and, and the different faces of it. But if somebody, however it looks, is willing to step on the necks of other people, then the thing is, is that like I say, the symbiotic relationship of our workplaces requires at some level for you to have the back of other people and someone else to have your back but as soon as, as. As employee will not or m. Manager will not have the back. Will not look at the look for the back of someone else. They're only looking out for their own, then that causes a chain reaction or a domino effect where, where there's a break in the chain and now everyone has to look out for themselves and have to be willing to kind of step on each other's necks in order to get there. Right.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:So let's talk a little bit first about kind of where it comes from and then, and then what kind of how it can go too far.
[JAMES]:So I really don't think it's that complicated where it comes from.
[COBY]:No.
[JAMES]:Right. It's not for me. I see it purely as a fear based tactic. completely.
[COBY]:Absolutely. I mean it. Because it's that fear of losing status or relevance. it's a bit of being exposed for your lack of, lack of competence or, or lack of confidence. Those are, That's a big one and we'll come back to that one. it's about losing kind of the small places of power that you've already kind of like maybe like card up for yourself and the little like kingdoms that you make. Fear of being blamed for something. Right. Fear of accountability. Whether it's true or accountability or it's unjustified blame. Right. I mean it's 100% fear based. I mean, I mean fear of losing your job is kind of the at the end of it losing your job or losing your reputation are kind of like the main areas and all those other ones like status and, and confidence and power and blame all fall within that to some capacity larger bucket
[JAMES]:of am I going to be found out? And this is one. I don't want to take us off track but this is one of the reasons why I really hate the fake it till you make it language and mentality because it sets people up for a situation where they may need to preserve you know they may need to act in self preservation. Right. Because that you know putting there is something to be said said absolutely. For trying new things and not being a hundred percent. Like we're never going to be 100 confident that we're going to be able to do, you know when you step into a new role and you need to address those confidence issues. So from that mentality, yes I get the, the instruction but I see it as a potential danger point because when you're in that model of I don't. I feel like I'm Faking it. I feel like I'm an imposter. Then the default is to try to protect yourself, which is rational and normal but dangerous. And it's dangerous to you, the manager, it's dangerous to your team, and it's dangerous to the organization.
[COBY]:Yeah, absolutely. So let's give a high level view of the different kind of things that it can look like. And then we'll kind of break down into some, into some more examples and dig into some of them a little bit deeper. But again, most people thinking that self preservation is often just a matter of like trying to maybe like, like throw other people under the bus is pretty much kind of what I think the broad strokes understanding of what that is. And that definitely is one of them. Let's be clear.
[JAMES]:That's a, that knife sticking out of your back. yeah, that's, that's a bad thing.
[COBY]:Yeah. But other, some of these other ones you, you listening may be like, okay, I didn't really think about it from, from that context. So some of these may be very helpful. again, another one that may be a bit, a bit kind of common is overly identifying with leadership to avoid scrutiny. Like overly, overly agreeable. Like the.
[JAMES]:Yes.
[COBY]:type kind of thing. Right. Or just kind of like, again like making the, the fake friendships with your boss to just to make sure that you're protected. That's definite. another one is kind of withholding information, like, kind of like carving it like, you know, like secrecy and lack of transparency.
[JAMES]:Well, that's that holding on to power piece. Right. Information is power, whether we're talking in life or in the workplace. And if I control the flow of information, then I have relevance.
[COBY]:Yeah, absolutely. So, and that's just it. Like the relevance piece is a big piece because another going back to relevance is sometimes when we're unconfident in the work that we're doing, we will create almost like a bit of chaos or a bit of competition or a bit of like conflict between our, between people that we work with. So that you can be the savior or that you can be the go between. So like your, your, your value and your role is more is clear that you know, this place would fall apart without me or these, these things would never work if I wasn't here. But you kind of causing that conflict. And we've seen that in a number of workplaces that we've gone into. I've got a few more that we may not really have talked about previously that I think we'll end up digging into these because these are actually really interesting. and they're kind of related but I'll kind of talk about them as three different things. one of them is alliance building for protection. And this is something that when you're Again this is actually kind of the precipice or the, the pre work that comes before a stronghold is created. Right. You're protecting yourself and so you're almost like building alliances with within your team and using the idea of the enemy of my enemies, my friend. And trying to like build these strong alliances by villainizing other departments or other people or management or whatever it might be as a way to protect yourself by insulating yourself with allies. But largely it's, it's often manufactured. And that leads me to the other one you just manufactured by the next one. Which is manipulation.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:Often we get very manipulative. We start rumors. We can start to pick apart people's like like interactions to kind of look for things to be taken to villainize. We can, we can actually start to really create the situation where we almost like gaslight people. And honestly I hate using that word. It's overused. It's often used incorrectly. But this is actually an accurate use of it where we actually kind of take them down a path of a logic chain that's actually false to kind of make them build loyalty towards us to build that alliance. And the last one is the big one and I'm sure we'll, and we will dig into this later is we often use the manipulation by crossing boundaries. And that's something that you listening may be like wait a minute. Boundary crossing is a form of self preservation that almost seems counterintuitive. But boundary crossing can often be a manipulation tactic where you overstep and you kind of create this type of personal friendship with people. especially if you're a manager to an employee that becomes almost like unhealthy or becomes almost like a. Almost like you're building this. This you're almost like buying loyalty by letting them into too much of your personal life and you into their personal life.
[JAMES]:And you're, and you're opening it opening up not for the purpose of building a relationship but for the purpose of manipulating the outcome. And where we've seen this is such an insidious tactic, done intentionally. It's incredibly manipulative, damaging and macaroni straight kind of cartoon villain. Ish. Yeah yeah. because like so like running through the, the scenario with we've Encountered situations where a leader will create a villain m. Because they don't necessarily have the skills to rally their team. They don't necessarily have the skills to build authentic relationships with their team. Or they, maybe they don't know how to connect with people on a relational basis and build that rapport that is necessary to be able to build trust. But, there are few things that rally a team better than a crisis or a villain to rally against. And we have seen the invention of villains to create this alliance, building protection for the manager to create a sense of dependency that the, employees have on that manager because they are then seen as the protector. They are then seen as the last line of defense between us and them. And that is unfortunately common. Whether it's done intentionally or whether it's. I will be gracious and for once and say that perhaps it can also be done unintentionally. I'm not entirely sold on that myself.
[COBY]:I'm going to push back on that. I actually think that there is a sense that it does happen unintentionally. More, more common, more often than you think. Because sometimes it's a matter of the person, let's say the leader. I mean, let's be clear. We've seen this where the villain is corporate, right?
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:Like I'm the store manager and you know, and, and where the. And you know, and corporate is the villain. So we need I'm. I'm the last time defense to protect you from you, my employees from corporate. I mean, that's like, that's a thing we've seen.
[JAMES]:Yeah, and that's, that's all the, all the time.
[COBY]:Let's be clear. Sometimes corporate is the villain. Let's be clear about that.
[JAMES]:Like, we're not, we're not. Just because they're not the villain doesn't ne. Doesn't automatically make them the good guy. Right.
[COBY]:Yeah. Okay, but let's, let's, let's set that aside. But, when the situation where the manager feels they have imposter syndrome or they feel that they're again, like they need to protect themselves, they actually will have the horns effect. Right. We've talked about this previously where, like the halo effect is where you kind of like filter everything with a positive spin. The horns effect is where you filter everything from a negative spin. So if the person is already feeling, has low confidence or they're feeling that they're out, of their depth or they have imposter syndrome, they're faking it to the make it sort of thing, then they actually feel like corporate is the villain, and they feel like they have to build this alliance to protect themselves. But also they actually may feel like they have to protect other people. And so they end up crossing boundaries because they want to form that alliance and they are using manipulative tactics, whether they're conscious of the tactics or not. I mean, let's be clear, sometimes. Well, lots of people have, like, attachment related issues. Like there's secure attachment and then there's avoidant attachment, and then there's, anxious attachment, stuff like that. If you already have anxious attachment as part of your personal attachment connection, then you may use boundary crossing as a way to try to form that alliance.
[JAMES]:All right, psychology nerd. Let's, let's get back on track.
[COBY]:All right, fair enough. But what I'm saying is, is that sometimes there is a sense that it does come from a case of them not realizing that they've come this far, that they were making small, gradual, boundary crossing. And, and the, any erosion of those boundaries happens slowly over time. And then they, and then they may only look back. Wow, we really crossed over lines.
[JAMES]:I'm now in a pit and I have no idea how to get out. So let's keep digging.
[COBY]:Exactly. And that, so that, that does happen.
[JAMES]:But, yeah, that's fair. It's not always the cartoon villain, that I like to, yeah, play up,
[COBY]:a little bit of nuance to it. But one of the things that I want to take us just on a little, a little redirect because I do want to continue talking about boundaries and we should, we should have come back to it. but it's one thing that I thought would be an interesting thing for us to just bring up first was, this kind of talking about the strongholds and stuff like that made me remember a New York Times article that just came out recently. I think Adam Grant was involved with it and things like that. And the idea, it was like, why. What is a real reason behind the return to office? Why was work from home really shut down? And it was this long. It was this kind of like long, term study where they get into it. And what was interesting was a large reason for the return to the office was not so much about cohesion or collaboration or all the kinds of stuff that we've been saying since really. I know we've been saying this since COVID it actually came back to self preservation for managers because they needed to be seen, they need to be admired, and they need to be invalidated. And that was a lot of the real reason for a lot of return to office was because managers didn't feel like they could maintain control of their team. So they had to basically convert everything so that they could have the validation of I'm doing a good job, I'm worth, I'm, I'm important to corporate. and that's why this, A lot of the return to office it was largely about ego. Ego was the main reason for a lot of the return to office piece really.
[JAMES]:It wasn't grounded in legitimate business operational requirements.
[COBY]:If only someone, people for the last five years.
[JAMES]:Yeah. Well it's, it's so funny. Well it. Funny is the wrong term. There's such a, it's such a bad reason to make a big decision.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:And it largely comes from the fact that we have used proximity as a stand in for being able to manage people. I don't think we've ever trained good. Not ever. I think the majority of times we fail to train good managers and we use proximity as the closest stand in that we can figure out. Right. Because if I can actually see what you're doing, then I can manage your work. But that doesn't build trust. That doesn't build and that doesn't build skill. All that does is build surveillance and when. And that's, that's the model that we tried to replicate during COVID when everybody had to work from home. That's why you know, these meetings for meeting sake and the invasive technologies that are used around, you know, key logging software or even like eye tracking movements to make sure that you're actually staring at your screen for eight hours a day. We are trying to replicate proximity when we don't have a good method for actually building accountability and trust.
[COBY]:Well and the whole idea is that, you know, the idea that work only looks like people typing on a computer, that's the like or you can only do work from your desk. But largely the again like this, this article was kind of making the point of those are the kind of underlying assumptions. But a lot of it is that leaders need to feel kind of like admired and validated by having people in their proximity. And as part of this reason that they're this they needed to preserve. So their self preservation was I can only lead if I'm admired or if I'm worshiped in the workplace or whatever it is. And it's a sense of self aggrandizing which is where a lot of the, like a lot of the push for a lot of this stuff is. It's not about the work, it's not about productivity, is not about quality. It's not about anything other than ego and self preservation. Now again, not to say every situation
[JAMES]:was that it's all about me.
[COBY]:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that's just it. But I mean not to say that again, there's no cases where Return to Office was what was useful.
[JAMES]:But it's not always that. These are well thought out. and articulate it. Motivations.
[COBY]:Intentional conscious decisions. Exactly. But I mean it is one of those things that I just. Again, I, I know we're going to get back into the boundary crossing piece, but I just. Before we, before we do that, I thought they would just. It was an interesting thing to pop into my mind so I just wanted
[JAMES]:to share that, maybe shoot a link to the article in the show notes.
[COBY]:Yeah, no, that's, that's a good idea. So I do want to dig in a bit more into the boundary crossing piece because this idea of boundary crossing tends to be kind of where a lot of the stuff ends up kind of starting. So you cross boundaries, create manipulation, build alliances, withhold information, all the other kind of stuff. Right. And what's interesting is that, and we talked about this kind of as a concept that we've seen and we thought it was a really interesting thing to bring up here. And you're really interested in it. When we were, when this kind of came up, some of our work was the idea of weaponizing vulnerability. Right. So the idea of where people share struggles not for connection but to manipulate outcomes, it's something that you know, this, this intentional, or maybe this subconsciously intentional effort to build rapport and create these protection alliances is something that again doesn't just exist in management, it often exists with teams. But it's because like I think we're all used to the, the idea of it's kind of like, like a bullying tactic where someone like befriends you and tries to get you to open up to your secrets. They could use them against you. That's something, that's something. That's a very, it's a very junior high thing.
[JAMES]:that hey, there's way too many commonalities between junior high and the workplace
[COBY]:that you know what, maybe that should be the quote. but I do think you're right. But almost. But since junior high I think all of us have become aware of that type of manipulation tactic where someone is a fake friend and then you over you share your Secrets with them and then they use them against you. But what is less common is that when someone befriends you, they shares things that you share and you share pieces. But it's to build that alliance and that. And that loyalty. It's almost like manufacturing loyalty through personal connection to you to eventually use you as a. A shield.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And I, I mean, we. I know that you, like I'm in a management role. I know that, you, my employee, love animals.
[COBY]:Right.
[JAMES]:And whether it's true or not, I can open up and show the vulnerability of this painful experience of having to, you know, recounting how the cat, that I've had for years suddenly passed and. Right. Like it's. It's this manufactured, sense of sympathy that I'm trying to get. Because if I can make. Get you to a point where you feel bad for me, that you feel like I. That you need to protect me, because this. Opening, this. This vulnerability that I'm showing is. Comes across as very authentic. It comes across as, you know, properly or wanting to build real connections. But it's an intentional manipulation to create allies in the workplace. These don't even need to be real vulnerabilities that I'm sharing. As long as I know what your motivations are, as long as I know what you value, I can create scenarios that sound very appealing from a. That relational standpoint. And we see this as a, manipulation tactic that happens with, poor. I'm just going to call them bad managers and bad leaders. I really. I. You're right. When, when we were kind of framing out what this conversation could possibly look like, that language of weaponized vulnerability, I really like the description of it because it is such a contrast to how we think about showing vulnerability in the workplace. And even we at Roman, like, we talk about vulnerability a lot and the importance of leaders in showing some humanity, in being vulnerable, in owning your mistakes, in being open and honest. These are very good traits. They are healthy traits. They can build, really strong relationships with people, but they can also be used nefariously.
[COBY]:Yeah. Yeah. And again, this isn't always just manager down. We see it a lot as manager to employee. Just what work do we do? But we also kind of see it where employees,
[JAMES]:Yeah, that's the nature of our specific context.
[COBY]:Yeah. But we also do see this where employees try to befriend their leaders to avoid accountability. Like, they try to build that personal connection. So that way when stuff. Stuff happens, they're. They're again, kind of like given a bit of a pass and favoritism and stuff like that.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:and I mean like, because again, a lot of it is, is that this idea of, you know, like, of these protection alliances is something that we trust that people, again, whether it's consciously or subconsciously try to create. And what, what's awful is again, if you come from a very cutthroat workplace or a workplace that has traumatized you and you m. And then you move to a new workplace that maybe doesn't have, maybe has a better culture, you may start feeling like you need to build these protection alliances just out of, out of just habit or you think this is what normal work is and it's a tough place to kind of get into that. You maybe you're intentionally building these alliances, for protection, but realizing that maybe you're actually building towards a war that you're unintentionally starting yourself. Or the idea of a self fulfilling prophecy. Right. Yeah, that might be some of that that you're saying, well, it's going to come down on me, so I need to build my alliances and then attack first and then when they attack back, like, see, I was right. They attacked us and that kind of thing. Yeah, because it's this idea of like ally building is a good thing in general. You want to build rapport, you want to build connection. I mean we talk about, we talk about employee motivation and kind of like, and connecting to your job with purpose. One of the sparks of motivation that we talk about, you know, we Talk about these 8 Sparks. 8 Sparks Motivation or 8 Sparks of Purpose story is loyalty, loyalty to others. Right. It's a building loyalty, having that connection, have making work friends and enjoy having a great culture to work in. Those are healthy, good things that, you
[JAMES]:know, they are legitimate motivators for people.
[COBY]:Absolutely. And well, and often, like we often stay in jobs because of the group people we work with, even though the job may be terrible and long hours and hot and whatever, but like we do enjoy the people that we work with so we, we tough it out.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:And that is healthy. That is a good culture. But understanding the difference of are you building allies and loyalty and connection or are you trying to just build protection? Are you like, you know, like, like what is your hidden, what is your motivation behind this? Because again, like, this is why we create cliques in the workplace. Right. Cliques are often protection alliances. They're not meaningful. again like employee, you know, morale and camaraderie. They're usually a form of Self preservation protection. And another thing too was like alliances can also become political currency. Right? Like you play, you kind of play the politics of the organization and you've got, you know, you've got the this again, this click that you know, you have to, you have to sell them on it because they're going to make people's life miserable or they make the new people, you know, have to like kind of they put them through the gears or they hold on the information, they built this little kingdom and then it becomes trading kind of again, political favors and using as political currency.
[JAMES]:Yeah. It's like there's so many damaging aspects to this. Like even as you're talking about the alliance building and the clicks and what's coming up for me is also how damaging this is to trying to create any form of belonging, in the workplace. Right. Like if people getting punished for not joining the right group, the in group, the, the cool kids table. right. It is so done poorly or done with the wrong intentions, it creates so many barriers to the type of environments that we say that we want. an environment where people can actually be themselves and provide their best work and show up to work without fear that their manager is going to blow their lid at the drop of a hat. Right. Like it is such anathema to a honestly productive and healthy workplace culture.
[COBY]:Yeah. Because I mean like, you're right. Belonging and inclusion are something that you can never truly get when you have these protection alliances existing in your workplace.
[JAMES]:Because again, by definition, right? If, if there is an us versus them, then there is not belonging.
[COBY]:No, absolutely. And the, because again, like it's, that's how we, you build. I mean that's also how you build glass ceilings and everything else like that too. Right? Because I mean, you know, there's. To get to the upper, upper echelon of the organization, you have to, you have to assimilate. And if that's. If that whether it's an old
[JAMES]:boys club mentality or a new boys club mentality doesn't matter.
[COBY]:It's if it's. Yeah, it's the. If it's. It could be the. What. What is the. One of our friends says all the time, is it male, frail and pale. Is that
[JAMES]:Male, stale and pale.
[COBY]:Male, stale and pale. Right. Yeah. Whether it's. Whether that's the, the entrance to, to the, to the click or, or it's the cool kids club or whatever it is. Right. I mean, you know, this idea of us versus them, these strongholds that end up kind of be creating in our workplaces. These are often. These are ah. These protection alliances that are come from the self preservation that start with boundary crossing. And I mean if you're in a workplace and these clicks, these protection alliances sound. These strongholds sound like something that, that exists where you work. And honestly let's be. They probably do. you're like well how did they start? Well they did start with this self
[JAMES]:preservation and preservation boundary crossing. And that's how it starts. And we end with organizational hunger games. Yeah, right. Like stuff can go wrong real quick.
[COBY]:Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and that's just it. And that's when we see these incredibly toxic cultures and we see all these, these, these different things that that kind of come from. And again it's the, it is resolvable but it is not an easy thing to. It's not a quick or simple or cheap fix to do that. But it is something that can be fixed. But I do think that you know we like. I wouldn't mind us just digging now a little bit more into kind of the leadership role of it because again a lot of this like with most things. Right. A lot of this does start with kind of the, the environment that that leader hap. Leadership happen or from leadership. And then because again it's. Things tend to turn toxic top down rather than bottom up. So, so I think it's important for us.
[JAMES]:I mean employees engage in these behaviors as well. But if it's tolerated by leadership, employees are going to do it. If it's not tolerated by leadership, employees are less likely to do it. So who's going to have the greatest impact on whether or not this is tolerated in the workplace? It's you, the leader.
[COBY]:100 so when we see leaders engage in self preservation it really does start to erode the whole system, the whole structure, the whole organizational strength and stability. And what this looks like is when leaders are blaming staff for their own poor decisions. Right. M. I mean what's the idea that praise bubbles up and like blame runs down sort of thing?
[JAMES]:I, I've heard that framed with blame being exchanged for a whole variety of other words.
[COBY]:Right.
[JAMES]:But yeah, the, the idea. I mean it's. In an ideal world, leaders would share the credit and hold the blame.
[COBY]:Yeah, yeah.
[JAMES]:And the problem is that the opposite happens. We share the blame and hold the credit.
[COBY]:Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes that's a matter of inflating their own contributions them, you know, like
[JAMES]:saying oh yeah, their staff for things that for decisions that haven't worked out the right, hoarding information and to maintain their own power, these things are all self preservation techniques that create an incredibly toxic environment.
[COBY]:Yeah, yeah, well, and I mean like, you know, like we also see things like, you know, like them almost like rewriting history to kind of like make themselves kind of like, like, you know, like be able to like be the hero of a story or ambulor and like. Oh, and what's funny, what is funny is this actually works out really well for some leaders because if you're a really toxic leader, you tend to have extremely high turnover. So there's not a ton of like corporate knowledge other than you. So when you start rewriting the story, there's no one who was there to challenge you on it.
[JAMES]:Or if there are people who are there, they're either in on the act or they are too paralyzed by the trauma of seeing everyone around them get fired or leave that they're not going to challenge you on it.
[COBY]:Exactly.
[JAMES]:but not that we're giving you tips, right? Like, let's just be very clear on this angle. These are not tips for you to engage in.
[COBY]:We do have tips coming, but you're right, this is not the.
[JAMES]:Not this section.
[COBY]:Yeah, yeah, let's, let's hope no one cuts this out and say, hey, toxic leaders. Do you wanna, do you wanna kick it up a notch? They toxic everybody. but the other thing is like, again, like retaliation is something that we see all the time. And again, this is, this is, you know, sort of breaching. Some of the core fundamental tenets around psychological safety and belonging are just so in like, you know, talk to leadership is just a complete counterpoint to psychological safety and belonging. Right.
[JAMES]:But I mean, it's narcissism, It's. Yeah, it's fragile egos, it's people who are insecure, about their own accomplishments. And it's this whole idea that I need to cover up my mistakes in order to appear competent, you know?
[COBY]:yeah. And they surround themselves with sycophants and yes. People and they, and they live in their own echo chamber. And it feels. Although a little sidebar. Someone, heard a clip of our podcast a little while ago, was asking if we did a political podcast talking about global politics.
[JAMES]:Oh, no.
[COBY]:Like, I was like, no, we don't. They're like, oh, well, I heard this clip and you got. And I was like, oh, that just. Because what we talk about, especially that little bit past theirs sound may sound relevant to global politics. It's actually not what we're talking about, but it does relate quite, quite well.
[JAMES]:Well, I mean we are talking about leadership and leadership is not only contained to the workplace. that's all for the purposes of Roman 3 and this podcast. That is the full extent of my political commentary. Fair enough.
[COBY]:Let's move on.
[JAMES]:You don't need me ranting about politics.
[COBY]:I am moving us. I'm moving this on because I don't have to cut a 25 minute rant, that none of you listeners have to hear, but I have to hear on a regular basis.
[JAMES]:Yeah, count your blessings.
[COBY]:Yeah, but I think where we want to get to and we. You touched on this before, but the idea of what is the real or additional cost of self preservation. And I think it, it is just this, and you hadn't mentioned this before, but self preservation is contagious.Right. That when one person starts doing it, everyone else has to do it. That when, when you, when you, when you kind of like hit that domino and like I said before, that, you know, when you don't have someone else's back so you're only looking for your own, then the chain breaks. And that is just something that we really wanted to make clear. That again, a lot of this stuff started because of self preservation. Contagious. And it became an us versus them. It became a look out for yourself, it became cutthroat. Stand on everyone else's neck to get a, small advantage. And that's how we often get it.
[JAMES]:And it was never addressed by leadership. It was never curtailed and it was allowed to fester and it was allowed to grow. And then it became the way that an entire team operated. Then it became the way that entire department operated. And then other departments had to look out for themselves. And so, and strongholds were created. And then it was departments against departments, or regions against regions or offices against offices. And this toxic us versus them mentality. Yeah, you can operate that way. You're gonna have significant turnover. You're gonna lose your top performers or you're going to incentivize your top performers to be incredibly selfish and engage in self preservation just to protect their own neck, which does not create institutional structure. And like, we want bench strength in our organizations. We want a solid bench of high performing, employees. We, yes, we want one or two standouts. We want these high performers who are just crushing it, whether that's in sales or anything else. But you cannot build your organization on a linchpin. Building your bench Strength is how you build resiliency. Building resiliency is how you build stability. Building stability is how you build for growth.
[COBY]:Yeah. 100. And it's one of those things where that, that chain that you just mentioned is what needs to be in the mind of the senior leaders and anything. And then so when you start seeing some of these self preservation behaviors existing, they need to be addressed like, like sharply as, as addressed as the threat that they actually are.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:And again, sometimes we go into organizations, whether we go in as part of the leadership team or we go in to take them over, or we go in as just regular consultants or whatever it is. But sometimes we see beloved managers being removed. And staff are up in arms about it. And sometimes those beloved managers were engaging in protection, alliance building. And that's why they were beloved, because they were crossing boundaries. They were, they were manipulating people into building this, this fabricated loyalty. And then they, and then they were trying to insulate themselves from all of the things that they were doing wrong, but they were keeping to themselves. And then so because they wanted the uproar to happen if they were let go because that was what they, the only protection that they could find. We see this happen a lot. And then, and it's tough because you're like, well, do you, you know, once a person's gone, how do you manage that? Do you like try and break the, the veil and tell them how terrible the person is? Well, no, you really can't because I mean like a lot of the times that stuff is.
[JAMES]:Plus you have confidentiality requirements. if they had been let go, then there could be a whole bunch of legal implications for you crossing those types of boundaries, like it is difficult for you to address after the fact. And this is something that we do work with organizations on. Yeah, it is a balance. And the thing is, even sometimes when the, the relationships like the, the manager may actually care, like legitimately care about the people that they worked with, that was not their intent or that was a byproduct of what they were doing rather than building relationships for relation, for relational, for productive, and for a, healthy environment.
[COBY]:Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[JAMES]:Okay. The problem is for the m, for the person on the other side of it, the motivation feels the same either way. The outcome feels the same either way.
[COBY]:Well that, that is a really good point because if you formed a connection with a co, with, with, with a coworker or with a manager or whomever it is, and you build a real connection with them, regardless of how and why that connection is real. You gave some of yourself to them, they gave some of their stuff back to you. And you know, you built often this bills into a personal friendship or whatever or whatever it is. Right, yeah. And then, and then you do feel betrayed by the organization when that person is gone and you may not realize, well, that wasn't healthy, that wasn't proper, that was breaking ethics. And even if you do kind of conceptually understand it, it doesn't, it still feels the same. Right?
[JAMES]:It doesn't matter because perception shapes reality and how we feel shapes our perception.
[COBY]:Yeah, yeah, you're right. Okay, so we have a little bit of time left so let's actually try to be. We went pretty negative this episode. not me.
[JAMES]:I'm always Mr. Positive.
[COBY]:Oh absolutely. let's actually try to like give some little bit of tips on what healthy self preservation can actually look like or what can you do to try, you know, make sure that you're building the proper self, you know, the proper efforts and that you can actually do to, you know, to, to do the healthy side of self probation. Because again like we said, self preservation at its core is not a bad thing. It's often when it's, it's, it's been manipulated or it's been co opted or it's been used for evil purposes. That all the stuff that we talked
[JAMES]:about before, I think for me like honestly where everything starts with me is clear expectations. Yeah, right. Clearly defining expectations around how we work together, how we engage. Like we've, we've talked before about, my leadership style tends to be a bit more informal than yours. and it, it is, it can be a balancing act but it starts with clear expectations around what boundaries are we setting in the workplace? How do we, like there's, I, I like to joke around with people, I like to have fun, I like to build those. Like I, I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of building the relationships with teams when we are engaged in our work. but there's boundaries to that. There's very clear expectations around how I, as this, in this executive role or in this consultant role, engage in certain things. And James the person is different than James the executive is different than James the consultant. And those expectations need to be clearly stated up front and those boundaries need to be reinforced.
[COBY]:No, no. And you're right because again setting and consistently upholding boundaries is, is probably an essential element to all of this because again like you have to be able to kind of Be clear about when you can and cannot engage in conversation where the, and be very consistent with where the lines are. And again this is kind of, we talked about this. again this is kind of goes back to our integrity leadership, program and methodology and framework because again a lot of it is that you know, is that the consistency of, of reliably being respectful to everybody but holding people to the boundaries and having the moral courage to kind of like be able to shut stuff down and again being, having the trustworthy influence to you know, respect the power that you've been given as a leader and whole and the reverence that you know it deserves and then, and then ethically following through with all that because ultimately self preservation is hardest when you're unconfident.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:But self preservation almost kind of becomes in a large way pretty easy to obtain if you can build the confidence in the work that you have. And one of the ways that you can do that is by having a framework to let you handle unfamiliar situations, to know how to navigate pieces and all and everything that goes along with it. Because again if you can't set boundaries, if you can't be consistent, if you can't, if you don't know how to handle situations you're not sure how to make or what, what kind of decisions to make, then it's easy to become a confident and it's easy to be questioned whether or not that you can do this job. And then you start to fall into self preservation strategies. But if you can find the confidence by having a framework like our integrity Leadership, approach, those tools, those tactics, those strategies can help you really develop actual confidence. And the self preservation becomes so much easier to obtain because you're m making smart, strategic, ethical, consistent decisions. And who doesn't want to keep someone like that around?
[JAMES]:Yeah. Right. Yep. I can't stress enough how much having a framework for m analyzing difficult decisions, how much confidence that builds. I mean it can be said that I've never been short on confidence whether earned or not. but it legitimately it is something that I still lean on constantly because having a con, we've talked about it so many times and I, I still firmly believe that consistency is one of the most, most important skills and attributes that we can have in the workplace. And what a framework, what a reliable framework provides is consistency, consistency in how we analyze our decisions. Consistency, consistency in how we evaluate our decisions. it can be incredibly ah, empowering.
[COBY]:Yeah. So I think what I'll do is I'll put some, I'll reference some episodes for if. For people to go back and listen to about integrity leadership. Yeah, because again, that is something that we really cannot stress enough. Has a lot of value in just giving you that consistency. Because again, if you can build the confidence and be consistent, then everything else becomes a lot easier. Like again, we walk in organizations that are, I'm going to say figuratively, but we have example of it being literally on fire.
[JAMES]:Easy now.
[COBY]:and, but like when we go in people's. People often say, how could you guys walk into these places that are just falling apart and just handle it. And the thing is that we only try and do three things, which is to be calm, to be confident and be consistent. And if we do those three things, that is what completely bodes so well for us. And that's why we end up doing so well when we step into these places. Because they, that is the recipe to make stuff happen. And it's something that, you know, if you don't have, if you can build those three things, then everything else becomes so much easier. So I think that if you listening are really concerned about your own self preservation, whether the good or the bad, I think the integrity leadership conversations may actually be very helpful, especially if you're filtering it through this, this conversation. I think you might find a lot of value with that.
[JAMES]:Yeah. Learning how to set and clearly express what you expect out of people in a way that is respectful, in a way that respects professional boundaries. and then having a framework that you can use to evaluate your own decision making when you're faced with a challenging situation, it, it will help.
[COBY]:Yeah, it absolutely does. And people that have used it have found it very helpful. We use it all the time. We find it very helpful. So.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:Okay, so I think that about does it for us. For a full archive of the podcast and access to video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit Roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.
[ANNOUNCER]:For more information on topics like these, don't forget to Visit us at Roman3.ca. Side effects of this podcast may include improved retention, high productivity, increased market share, employees breaking out in spontaneous dance, dry mouth, aversion to the sound of James voice, desire to find a better podcast…
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