Who is YOUR CEO?
Whenever I have asked this seemingly straight question to managers from different geographies, I have received answers naming their superiors. But when I rephrase this by asking who is the CEO of your SOUL, I have met with bewildering and confused faces. Indeed, most of us seem to have outsourced our CEOs outside. In India we have scores of holy men, millions of Gods who have taken complete responsibility for whatever good or bad happens to us. If not them then our fate and luck are easy scapegoats. Why is it that very few take responsibility for their actions? Our research indicates that successful people don’t outsource their souls to others but take complete ownership. In technical jargon they possess internal locus of control. As Howard Roark in Fountainhead famously remarked ‘we can divide the meal among many men but cannot digest in a collective stomach’. We need to reflect seriously about shifting the outsourcing of Soul to us. We need to maintain internal congruence and a proper work life balance. Work identity is important but not at the cost of our self worth or self esteem. We have to realize our obligations to our family, our social network as equally critical and do mid course correction to get the balance back in our life.
