January 2026 – Page 2 – Critical Research Journal

Ego, leadership, and the person-centred approach

On the first evening of our Person-Centred Approach course last night, the nature of ego was raised. To begin with there’s the difference between the Freudian use of the term and the lay person’s. Key here, though, is what it would look like for a leader to put their own needs and desires aside when they are supporting their team, and the individuals in it, to grow to their fullest potential with the achievement of the organisation’s goals as inevitable side products.

When ego arises in leadership, it shows itself in behaviour before it shows in thought. A leader led by ego seeks control, status, or safety. They speak to prove a point. They move to fix problems before they understand them. They listen for threat rather than meaning. Even with good intent, their actions pull attention back to themselves. On the other hand, in a person-centred frame, leadership begins when those habits loosen.

A leader who sets ego aside behaves in a distinctive way. They enter meetings without the need to perform. They ask questions and allow answers to stand, even when those answers unsettle them. They do not rush to fill silence. They notice their own wish to steer or rescue, and they choose restraint. This does not make them passive. It makes them precise. They act with care rather than impulse.

Such a leader relates to staff as capable adults. They resist using power to shape outcomes too soon. They offer clarity of role and purpose, then step back. When someone struggles, they do not turn the moment into a test of loyalty or skill. They stay present, reflect meaning, and trust the person’s drive to grow. This stance draws directly on the work of Carl Rogers, where empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard form a climate for change.

In practice, this means the leader does not need to be the cleverest voice in the room. They share authority and credit. They accept feedback without defence. They name limits without blame. When conflict appears, they slow the process rather than escalate it. Staff learn that honesty does not lead to harm. As fear drops, learning rises.

From this base, results follow without force. People invest in work that feels meaningful and fair. Initiative spreads because it feels safe to act. Alignment with organisational aims grows because those aims no longer feel imposed. The leader’s needs for recognition or control fade from view, not through denial, but through trust in the process.

This form of leadership does not reject the ego in the technical sense described by Sigmund Freud. It relies on a stable self that can bear doubt and restraint. What it sets aside is the need to protect status. When that need loosens, leadership becomes less about direction and more about cultivation.

And what is going on for a leader who lacks this level of self-development?

When a leader lacks this level of self-development, their behaviour often signals an inner strain they do not yet recognise. They experience leadership as exposure rather than service. Each meeting feels like a test. Each challenge feels personal. Their actions seek relief from unease rather than growth in others.

Such a leader protects the self through control. They talk too much, interrupt, or close debate early. They offer answers before questions have formed. They monitor loyalty and react fast to dissent. Feedback lands as threat, not data. These acts do not stem from malice. They arise from anxiety that has no place to settle. The leader has not learned how to hold uncertainty without defence.

In these moments, the leader’s attention stays fixed inward. They track how they appear, how they rank, and whether they feel secure. This inward pull limits empathy. They struggle to stay with another person’s account when it clashes with their own view. They confuse disagreement with disrespect. Growth in others feels risky because it might weaken their grip on authority.

From a person centred view, this pattern reflects gaps in self-trust. The leader has not yet formed a stable sense of worth that stands apart from role or praise. Without that base, they seek validation through outcomes and compliance. They need quick wins and clear signs of success. They push for alignment before meaning has formed. Staff sense this and respond with caution rather than commitment.

This pattern echoes the everyday use of ego rather than the technical sense described by Sigmund Freud. The issue does not lie in weak ego function, but in a fragile self-concept. The leader cannot yet allow others to lead parts of the work because that feels like loss. They cannot sit with silence because it feels empty rather than fertile.

By contrast, the stance described by Carl Rogers rests on inner security. When that security has not formed, the leader substitutes structure, pressure, or charm. These tools may deliver short-term results, yet they erode trust. Learning slows. Initiative shrinks. The organisation meets targets while losing spirit.

Development here does not require technique. It requires space for reflection, honest feedback, and safe challenge. Until the leader can meet their own fear without defence, they will keep meeting others through control.

References

Rogers, C. R. (1951). Client-Centered Therapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Rogers, C. R. (1961). On Becoming a Person. London: Constable.
Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. Vienna: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag.

As professionals get older, they often seem to encounter younger individuals who come across something for the first time and assume that it is either new or that they have invented something that nobody has heard of before. In effect, those younger people are simply ignorant of the history of their subject and naïve to think that nobody would have thought of it before them. They have an inflated sense of their own capability. There is a body of academic research about this…

Scholars frame this phenomenon in terms of expertise, metacognition, and learning stages, rather than age per se. Research across social and cognitive psychology shows that people new to a field often mistake first exposure for innovation, and early insight for mastery. This pattern reflects predictable limits in self-assessment rather than a flaw of character.

The most influential account comes from work by David Dunning and Justin Kruger. Their research on what became known as the Dunning–Kruger effect showed that individuals with low skill in a domain tend to overrate both their competence and the quality of their ideas (Dunning & Kruger, 1999). The key claim does not rest on arrogance. Instead, it rests on metacognitive limits. The skills needed to judge quality overlap with the skills needed to produce it. When people lack those skills, they cannot see the gaps in their own knowledge. As a result, they believe their ideas show originality when they simply repeat earlier work.

Later studies refined this claim. Kruger and Dunning argued that as expertise grows, confidence often falls before it stabilises (Kruger & Dunning, 2009). Increased knowledge exposes prior debates, failed approaches, and unresolved tensions. This process weakens inflated claims of novelty. It also explains why experienced professionals tend to greet bold claims from newcomers with scepticism rather than excitement. They recognise the idea, even when the speaker does not.

A second strand of research concerns illusory superiority, sometimes called the better-than-average effect. Studies show that people routinely rate their abilities, insight, and originality above those of peers, especially where standards remain vague or feedback remains slow (Alicke & Govorun, 2005). Intellectual and creative work offers fertile ground for this bias. Claims of originality resist easy testing, and many fields reward confidence in speech more than accuracy in history. Under these conditions, novice thinkers may assume their perspective stands apart when it merely stands early.

Educational psychology adds further depth. Research on learning curves shows that beginners often pass through a phase of high confidence soon after first contact with a topic. Bjork, Dunlosky, and Kornell describe this as an illusion of understanding, where surface fluency masks shallow grasp (Bjork et al., 2013). Early models feel clear because they remain simple. Learners have not yet met contradiction, context, or edge cases. This stage invites premature claims of insight and invention.

Work on expertise development supports this view. Studies of expert performance show that mastery involves long exposure to prior work, criticism, and failure. Experts learn to locate their ideas within a lineage rather than outside it (Ericsson et al., 2006). Novices lack that map. Without it, they mistake personal discovery for historical novelty. The claim “no one has thought of this before” often translates to “I have not yet read enough”.

Importantly, the literature avoids moral judgement. These effects do not imply that younger or less experienced people lack intelligence or creativity. They reflect normal cognitive limits during learning. Many researchers note that early confidence can serve a motivational role. It sustains engagement long enough for deeper learning to begin. The problem arises when institutions reward confidence without insisting on historical grounding.

From a professional standpoint, the tension reflects a clash between short memory and long memory. Early learners work from immediate insight. Experienced practitioners work from accumulated context. Each position carries value, but confusion arises when novelty becomes a social claim rather than an empirical one. Academic research strongly supports your observation. It also explains why time in a field tends to foster restraint, citation, and humility rather than louder claims of invention.

My first real exposure to this came when I was trying to help managers in a chemical plant implement problem-solving groups. The managers had a fraction of the experience of the employees who were operating the plant. The operators, on the other hand, didn’t have access to the experimental design skills that [a handful of] the managers had. Once they were helped to run their own trials, the operators soon demonstrated their superior ability to optimise the plant, and the managers learnt to eat humble pie.

References

Alicke, M. D., & Govorun, O. (2005). The better-than-average effect. In M. D. Alicke, D. A. Dunning, & J. I. Krueger (Eds.), The self in social judgment (pp. 85–106). Psychology Press.

Bjork, R. A., Dunlosky, J., & Kornell, N. (2013). Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 417–444. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143823

Dunning, D., & Kruger, J. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognising one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121

Ericsson, K. A., Charness, N., Feltovich, P. J., & Hoffman, R. R. (2006). The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816796

Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (2009). Unskilled and unaware of it: How people fail to recognise their own incompetence. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(1), 30–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01130.x