Containment Factors

Overview

There are 11 containment factors that influence your personality positively or negatively: Defensiveness, Morality, Fairness, Sincerity, Greed Avoidance, Modesty, Avoidant Relationships, Anxious Relationships, Sensation Seeking, Pain Avoidance, and Reward Sensitization. These factors moderate or amplify a leader's behavior, making them more or less effective or in certain situations.

Defensiveness

It's an age-old question: "Who am I?" Many ponder this, but fewer understand why they react immaturely when reality clashes with their self-perception. Even prominent figures react childishly, revealing how ego and personality influence behaviour. For business leaders, these slip-ups can become toxic, eroding leadership potential.

The ego is the part of us that affirms our identity, while personality assessments focus on internal traits. Ego defenses, developed from childhood to adulthood, protect us from unpleasant realities. From denial and projection to rationalisation, these defenses activate when the ego feels threatened.

Childhood defenses, appropriate in youth, become problematic in adulthood. Examples include acting out, denial, and passive aggression. Neurotic defenses, emerging in the teenage years, alter the emotional response rather than the facts. Mature defenses, like humour and suppression, develop in adulthood, allowing for healthier responses.

Leaders exhibiting immature defenses, such as denial or blame-shifting, hinder their growth and adaptability. These defenses prevent the ego from accepting necessary changes, leading to repeated unproductive behaviours. Such defensiveness creates a toxic cycle, eroding trust and psychological safety within the team.

Imagine a leader who schedules but then denies a meeting. The resulting ambiguity and anxiety disrupt team productivity. If the leader remains defensive, this behaviour persists, destroying trust.
Unchecked ego defenses in leaders manifest as immature or toxic behaviours, jeopardising their reputation, team cohesion, and business success. Recognising and managing these defences is crucial for effective, adaptive leadership.

Virtues

Most people don't wake up intending to be evil. Instead, we function based on virtues instilled by family, friends, role models, and leaders. These virtues—morality, fairness, sincerity, greed avoidance, and modesty—moderate or amplify our innate personality traits, serving as "containment factors."

These virtues are increasingly crucial for leaders and businesses in today's transparent world. Social media and workplace review sites like Glassdoor expose company cultures, making it essential for businesses to embody the values they project genuinely. Leadership and culture are vital to attracting and retaining talent, and deficiencies are more challenging to hide.

Leaders' perceived virtues significantly impact team dynamics. Suppose a leader is seen as immoral, insincere, unfair, greedy, or immodest. In that case, team members will be on guard, diverting energy to monitoring these behaviours and looking for evidence to confirm their suspicions. Conversely, leaders with clear, positive virtues will gain trust and followership more easily.

Ultimately, a leader's virtues matter deeply. They influence the leader's effectiveness and the team's cohesion and performance, making genuine virtue an indispensable asset in modern business leadership.

Morality

The first sub-factor of virtue is morality, the ability to distinguish between what society views as good and bad behaviour. Morality is often confused with ethics, but they differ. Ethics are logical systems guiding behaviour, with various schools of thought such as Kantian ethics, Everyone can win, promoting equality; Machiavellian ethics, The ends justify the means; and Lockean ethics, Rights come with responsibilities.

These ethical systems dictate what actions are considered ethical or unethical, akin to laws in different jurisdictions. In contrast, morality is psychological, not philosophical or logical. Most people don’t consciously adopt a specific ethical framework; instead, they are driven by a sense of justice and what feels reasonable and proper.

A leader’s displayed morality significantly impacts how employees perceive the organisation’s integrity. Employees benchmark their sense of the organisation's integrity based on the leader’s morality. Therefore, a leader's moral behaviour is crucial in setting the tone for the organisation's ethical climate.

Fairness

Fairness is a crucial sub-factor of virtue in leadership. It is central to building trust, as self-interest can undermine it. Leaders with a healthy level of fairness recognise that fairness is good, but getting what they want also feels good. This balance results in some deals being mutually beneficial (win-win), while others may be more self-interested (big win-small win, win-don't lose).

Fairness differs from self-sacrifice or martyrdom, which negates the self-serving element and can jeopardise business longevity. For instance, if a leader gives all resources to their team and keeps none, they ultimately undermine their sustainability.

Fairness also underpins equity, not just equality. Equality means everyone gets the same, which ignores individual needs. Equity means distributing resources based on individual requirements. For example, if there are nine apples and three people, one person might need only one apple while the others get four each, depending on their hunger levels. This approach is fair and equitable, though not equal.

A genuine sense of fairness shapes how a leader allocates resources; effective leaders use fairness to create a balanced, sustainable approach to business operations and team management.

Sincerity

Sincerity is crucial for effective leadership, as deception undermines trust. Stakeholders constantly assess whether a leader means what they say. If a leader is perceived as insincere, it damages their credibility. A leader's word must be their bond to build trust.

Sincerity benefits business transactions and negotiations. A sincere leader can finalise deals more efficiently than an insincere one. As Don Peppers noted in "The Speed of Trust," trust simplifies and accelerates processes. Lack of sincerity slows progress, as deals require extensive documentation and scrutiny, which can delay market entry.

A sincere leader's word reduces the need for excessive documentation and fosters quicker agreements. In case of issues, a genuine apology from a sincere leader is more likely to be accepted, maintaining trust and future deal potential.

While complete transparency isn’t always practical, average sincerity means a leader knows when a white lie is preferable. Leaders must balance trust with caution, ensuring agreement clarity to prevent misunderstandings and resentment. Until trust is firmly established, written terms are advisable.

Highly sincere leaders may practice "radical candour," being brutally honest. While intentions are usually understood, their straightforwardness can sometimes offend. Conversely, leaders with low sincerity might say the right things at the right time but may lack genuine transparency, ultimately eroding trust.

Genuine sincerity in leadership builds trust, facilitates efficient transactions, and maintains credibility, which is essential for long-term success.

Greed Avoidance

Our research found many leaders reported elevated levels of "greed." Contrary to Michael Douglas's mantra in Wall Street, “Greed is good,” greed is simply the concept of always wanting more. It's a double-edged sword, costing both professionally and personally.

In business, greed can undermine team and organisational health. For instance, if a leader takes all resources, leaving none for the team, it leads to dissatisfaction, reduced performance, and business failure. Fairness ensures equitable resource distribution, whereas unchecked greed jeopardises long-term partnerships, customer retention, and employee loyalty.

Leaders and organisations prioritising profit at the expense of employee benefits can lead to high turnover, damage the company's reputation, and hinder talent acquisition. Greed can also erode trust. If leaders are perceived as greedy, colleagues and customers may question their motives, scrutinise deals, and undermine relationships.

On a personal level, greed affects work-life balance. Leaders driven by greed often spend excessive time at work, neglecting family and friends. This imbalance can lead to a hollow existence, where material wealth is prioritised over meaningful relationships.

While ambition is essential, unchecked greed can harm professional success and personal fulfilment. Leaders must balance their desires with fairness and integrity to maintain trust and sustainable growth.

Modesty

The final sub-factor of virtue is modesty. It is often viewed as the opposite of narcissism but is truly about personal decorum and how others are treated. A leader can be confident and self-assured while still respecting others and not expecting special treatment.

Leaders with average modesty generally treat people equally but may sometimes show preferential treatment based on social status or role, which can be problematic in environments valuing equality and meritocracy.
Immodest leaders risk eroding a learning culture. Junior team members might hesitate to seek help or admit mistakes if their leader constantly boasts and belittles others, leading to unreported and compounded errors.

Conversely, modest leaders who acknowledge their imperfections create an environment where team members feel safe asking for help and learning from mistakes. This fosters continuous improvement and collaboration.

A significant risk of low-modesty leaders is falling into the appeal to authority-fallacy, believing they are always right due to their position. This can lead to poor decision-making, as seniority is mistaken for correctness, potentially overlooking better-informed, albeit junior, perspectives.
Modesty in leadership promotes respect, encourages learning, and prevents overconfidence, fostering a healthy, collaborative, and effective organisational culture.

Relationships

Leaders, by definition, lead people, requiring ongoing, productive relationships. Confidence and comfort in a leader are crucial for positive interactions. Whether superficial or deep, relationships rely on the psychological system of "attachment," not "personality." Traditional personality assessments, like introversion and extroversion, focus internally, while attachment focuses on relationships.

Deeper relationships encompass the meanings of interactions. Moments of meaning, from a simple "thank you" to significant recognition, carry emotional weight and influence relationship management. Leaders engage with peers, team members, customers, suppliers, and shareholders. Understanding attachment styles is vital for grasping how leaders bring their natural energy into relationships. Effective leaders strike the right balance, building trust and influence by appearing genuinely connected and caring.

Attachment styles—secure, anxious, and avoidant—shape relationship dynamics. Secure leaders balance engagement, making people feel valued. Anxious, overly attached leaders chase interactions excessively, while avoidant leaders keep people at arm’s length. Achieving the right attachment level enhances a leader's ability to foster trust, build strong relationships, and create a supportive team environment.

Avoidant Relationships

The first containment factor is avoidant relationships. Leaders with this attachment style are often perceived as "too cold", maintaining distance, keeping people at arm's length, and downplaying the importance of relationships. This aloofness can lead to dismissing others' emotions and minimising the impact of hurtful actions, suggesting that others should "get over it".

While being aloof may make others chase them, it's important to note that avoidant leaders often become emotionally isolated. Sustaining long-term relationships becomes a real challenge as people tire of investing energy only to feel unimportant and undervalued. The toxic cliché "treat them mean and keep them keen" epitomizes avoidant attachment, evoking anxiety in others.

Avoidant relationships' darker side includes emotional loneliness and strained relationships. The constant signal that others are low on their priority list gradually erodes trust and connection. This style can impair team function and performance, as it increases anxiety, reduces cohesion, and creates an environment where people feel undervalued.

Anxious Relationships

The first containment factor is anxious relationships. Leaders with this attachment style often invest excessive energy into relationships, seeking constant interaction and validation. They may view relationships as more significant or established than they are, sometimes labelling new acquaintances as "best friends". This over-investment stems from a deep-seated insecurity about the availability and support of friends, family, co-workers, and superiors.

While not identical to abandonment issues, this insecurity drives leaders to constantly seek reassurance and worry excessively about others' responses. Questions like, "Why didn’t they text me back?" or "Does that mean they don't like me anymore?" dominate their thoughts. This pervasive need for validation can lead to over-the-top or excessive actions, often perceived as needy and overwhelming by others.

The anxious leader's intense focus on relationships can initially draw people in, but their relentless pursuit of validation can become draining. Such leaders are likely to be seen as overly dependent and demanding, which can strain professional relationships and hinder team dynamics. To improve their effectiveness, anxious leaders need to develop a more secure attachment style.

Motivation

Motivation drives people to do what they're good at, enjoy, or believe will bring positive benefits or help avoid negative consequences. Companies have long sought the "secret sauce" to drive performance, exploring models like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, Hertzberg’s Motivation to Work, and MacGregor's Theory X and Y.

Motivation is complex and varies individually—what motivates one person may not affect another. Essentially, motivation drives someone toward something desirable or away from something undesirable. This dichotomy, often labelled as carrot vs stick or reward vs consequence, reveals two motivational styles: decreasing the negative or increasing the positive.

A leader's motivation, whether driven by attraction or avoidance, significantly impacts their effectiveness and success. For instance, a leader motivated to achieve a beneficial outcome is more likely to succeed than one motivated to avoid the same situation. Therefore, businesses must understand what motivates their leaders.

There are three key types of motivation in leadership: Place, Pain, and Prize. Place Motivation is the desire to work in exciting locations and on the road rather than staying in one place. Pain Motivation is the drive to avoid negative outcomes like reprimands or penalties. Prize Motivation is the willingness to take risks to achieve a desired outcome.

Understanding these motivations helps businesses align leaders with roles where they can excel, ensuring better performance and success.

Sensation Seeking

The first motivator is "sensation seeking" or "place motivation." This drives individuals towards or away from environments rich in diverse, intense sensations. Sensation-seekers are attracted to dynamic workplaces, disruptive industries, challenging team dynamics, and complex operating environments. They thrive in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (V.U.C.A) settings.

Such individuals excel in high-change, fast-paced environments with significant disruption. However, they may struggle in static, routine environments where the status quo is maintained. While this trait is valuable in competitive and disruptive settings, excessive sensation-seeking can lead to boredom and the creation or encouragement of unnecessary chaos.

High sensation-seeking motivation can hinder businesses from focusing on quality, consistency, and reliability. For instance, prioritising creative packaging over testing reliability would be detrimental in a pathology testing lab.

Thus, while sensation-seeking leaders are assets in fast-paced, innovative environments, their tendencies can be problematic in contexts requiring calm, rational, and systematic approaches. Balancing sensation-seeking with the need for stability and reliability is crucial for optimal business performance.

Pain Avoidance

The second motivator is "inhibition" or "pain avoidance motivation." Individuals with low pain avoidance motivation take on high-risk situations, such as high-profile projects with significant uncertainty and accountability, with potential pain from risks like revenue loss, reputational damage, or stakeholder retribution.

Organisations often seek leaders with low pain avoidance, valuing their risk appetite and resilience. These leaders are willing to endure tough times and aim for victory. However, this trait can backfire if their judgment errs, leading to unbearable pain for the business. For example, in a "race to the bottom" strategy, miscalculations can drive a business into the ground if a leader sticks with a flawed plan for too long.

Conversely, in roles like Safety Managers and Financial Controllers, high pain avoidance or a low tolerance for risk is advantageous. These individuals are motivated to avoid fines, audits, and accidents, which helps steer the business away from high-risk situations.

Thus, while leaders with low pain avoidance can drive success in challenging environments, those with high pain avoidance are crucial for roles requiring meticulous risk management. Balancing these motivations within leadership teams ensures both innovative progress and safeguarded stability.

Reward Sensitization

The third motivator is "reward sensitisation" or "prize motivation." This determines whether an individual is driven by achieving outcomes or by the processes leading to those outcomes. It's akin to a gambler's dilemma: how much risk is worth the reward? For instance, risking $1 to win $1 million is enticing, but risking $500,000 for the same prize might not be. Prize motivation gauges how big the potential reward must be before the risk outweighs the incentive.

This motivation influences a leader's behaviour significantly. It shapes decisions on what risks to take and what they consider worth risking. For example, a leader's choice to build a solution in-house versus buying a proven one reflects their prize motivation. This has substantial implications for how a business tackles problems and seizes opportunities.

Leaders with low prize motivation prioritise current assets over potential future gains, adhering to the adage, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." They avoid risks, valuing what they have now. Conversely, leaders with high prize motivation tend to take risks for more significant rewards.

Both motivations are valuable, depending on the business's stage and the level of risk necessary for problem-solving and generating results. Balancing these motivations can lead to a well-rounded leadership and business strategy approach.