A PhD student recently caught me off guard when he started our scheduled meeting with an accusation: “Why don’t you practice what you preach?”
As far as conversation starters go, this one needed context. So I invited him to elaborate.
“You preach selfishness,” he said. “But you are the most selfless person I know.”
For evidence, he cited my commitment to my students and colleagues. On many occasions he had observed me helping others with their research. Or spending my time tirelessly as a mentor and adviser. Or simply giving encouragement.
Didn’t this make me a hypocrite?
What followed was a discourse on what it really means to be selfish, and why I reject the “selfless” label for myself. The distinction is important for leaders who want to make the world a better place.
Despite the lessons that children learn in preschool—when parents and teachers prod them to share their toys with others who offer nothing in return—social value creation does not require self-sacrifice or denial of personal interests.
The built-in assumption is that somebody must lose so somebody else can win.
This is false. Sustainable alliances lift everyone, including yourself. As explained in a previous collumn, you are the one constant in your world. How can you make it a better place if your actions hurt yourself?
Former BB&T Chairman and CEO John Allison champions this principle. “Life is really about creating win-win relationships,” he says, “not sacrificing other people nor sacrificing yourself.”
Put simply, you have a right to treat yourself well. But you don’t do that by hurting others.
Consider my work as an educator. I don’t see charity cases roaming the halls at the business school where I spend my days. I see aspiring minds.
Cultivating intellectual curiosity in my students is the most selfish thing I could do because that’s a core part of who I am. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. That’s what keeps me feeling young after 25 years as a professor.
That’s about me.
If I stopped, I would betray my values and suffer as a consequence. When you strip away everything else, that’s what selfishness means: Adherence to the values that you choose for yourself.
Contributing to society happens naturally as an outgrowth of this pursuit. That’s about the people in your life. That’s about solving problems in your world.
That’s about others.
Leaders who recognize the link between self and others train themselves to think in terms of win-win solutions. They see themselves as traders who exchange value for value. Then they develop their self-interest in five stages.
Define Your Values
People cannot be true to their values until they know what they are, so the first step is to define them.
This cannot be done during periods of crisis. Defining your values is an ongoing process that begins in moments of stability with a deliberate focus on reflection.
While values are most saliently observed during emergencies, their development requires a ruthless commitment to understanding the roots of one’s desires and aspirations.
So take out a notepad and consider carefully: What are the things you will never do? Why? What will you always do? Why? How will you respond when competing values clash? Why?
Selfish leaders anticipate dilemmas. They arrange their values in a hierarchy. Then they follow a simple rule: Never give up a higher value for a lower one.
If family and friends matter, make sure you nurture your personal relationships. If career goals are important, don’t indulge in whims that put them on the wayside. If creative expression comes first, then don’t sacrifice style for popularity.
Prepare To Work
Second comes the recognition that serving your values is not the default setting. It requires hard work and discipline. And it is a long-term endeavor.
News outlets show examples of the counterfeit every time wayward leaders get caught committing fraud, corruption or exploitation.
These are shortcuts. Unethical leaders might acquire wealth and power, but they betray themselves in the process. Striving to win at others’ expense is not selfish. It is brutish.
Likewise, focusing on out-competing others as the primary goal does not serve yourself. It defines you based on social comparisons and feeds negative emotions like envy and jealousy.
Truly serving yourself requires adherence to noble values. It’s not about destroying something to get ahead. It’s about creating something.
Selfish leaders embrace the challenge.
Look Outward
Once selfish leaders look inward at their own values, they look outward at the values of others. They follow the ABCs voluntary trade, as described in an earlier column.
- Acquire information. What are the aspirations and abilities of others? What are their values? How do they measure success?
- Build on common interests. Selfish people do not work with others who oppose their values. They look for alignment. But the fit does not need to be all-encompassing. Trade partners don’t need a 100% agreement on all values, but they do need 100% alignment on what they agree to undertake together.
- Create win-win relationships. Working together, individuals can achieve far more than any person could do alone. That does not diminish any one individual’s contribution, though. As Aristotle said, it simply ensures that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Selfish leaders crave such collaboration with like-minded individuals. They serve themselves best when they exchange value for value with partners who complement and expand their abilities.
Monitor And Adjust
The fourth step is course correction.
Selfish leaders act to the best of their ability and knowledge, but they do not demand perfection. They give themselves leeway to experiment and fail. When better information becomes available, they acknowledge their errors and adjust.
They apply the same standard to the people with whom they associate. They are kind to themselves and others.
Celebrate Win-Wins
The final step is to celebrate win-win outcomes.
Selfish leaders who reap rewards do not wring their hands with guilt. They do not apologize for their success.
When they engage in philanthropy, they do it out of a commitment to their values—for selfish reasons—never as penance for something society often mistakes as greed.
“I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money,” U.S. economist Thomas Sowell has said.
The notion that moral behavior must benefit others, never yourself, is misguided. It creates a needless false dichotomy, pitting one person’s values against another’s. And it ignores the human dignity manifested in mutually beneficial relationships.
As I noted to my student, my own purpose is creating upward mobility. It’s about me. It’s about you. It’s about win-win.