What are the habits of self-sabotaging people?
Posted by Dr. Earl R. Smith II in Questions, tags: adviser, advisory board, angel investor, board of directors, CEO, chairman, coaching, consulting, director, earl r smith ii, earl smith, Executive Coaching, federal circle, federal contracting, funding, Governance, government contractor, investing, investment, investor, Leadership, leadership assessment, leadership coaching, leadership development, leadership styles, management assessment, managing partner, Personal Growth, the federal circle, turnaround, Turnaround Management, Venture CapitalDr. Earl R. Smith II
Managing Partner, The Federal Circle
DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com
Dr-Smith.com
I am interested in the behaviors that people adopt that are self-sabotaging. I am collecting material for an expanded article or book on the subject. What behaviors have you observed that are flatly self-sabotaging? Why do you think people engage in these often insulting behaviors? How do you make them aware of what they are doing? What behaviors do you just walk away from?
© Dr. Earl R. Smith II
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Dr. Smith is Managing Partner of The Federal Circle. The Federal Circle partners with teams and existing companies. We help them up their game and win big in the Federal space. We also arrange funding for acquisitions and expansion by acquisition. Our model is based on the belief that, if you select the very best and work with them in a highly professional and focused manner, the results will be truly amazing. He is the author of Amazing Pace: Turbo-charged Business Development – a book that shows how Advisory Boards can dramatically increase revenue. Dr. Smith is also the author of Dream Walk: Parables for the Living – a book of Raven Tales and exploration.
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I think this question would be interesting to pair with your other one – “How do you deal with high maintenance people?” I agree with Ricardo’s observations about self-sabotaging people. I have also noticed that because these individuals are sweating the small stuff, stop learning and listening and believe that things are too difficult, they also end up becoming high-maintenance which often re-emphasizes the self-sabotaging cycle (or at least somehow justifies it in their minds.)
Interestingly, I’ve noticed that particular *situations* are often the trigger for the self-sabotage. Perhaps the individual doesn’t “feel comfortable in their own skin” or just doesn’t know what to do and is somehow embarrassed, paralyzed or otherwise disabled to change the behavior.
I’ve yet to find someone in this situation get out of it without fundamentally changing the environment of where they are exhibiting the behavior – either they start interacting with other people, change the goal of what they are trying to do or end up having some personal revelation that causes them to see things differently. I wonder if it is possible to force one of these things to happen somehow…
Posted by Laura Paglione
Self-sabotaging behaviors that I have witnessed have generally been in a cross-cultural context. This makes one suspect that in speaking of self-sabotaging behaviors in general, we may in fact be talking about a type of culture-shock (not necessarily national culture, but, perhaps, individual culture vs. group culture).
Successful behavior under one set of conditions may be self-sabotaging under a different set of circumstances. So, the answer to the question would seem to lie in a certain degree of rigidity (lack of knowledge?) in the face of changing circumstances. This may also be related to fear of the unknown and a lack of self-confidence, where the self-sabotaging individual is more comfortable with entrenched behaviors and would prefer to stick with these rather than learn new behaviors that may also create an additional identity crisis (thus compounding the problem).
As with culture shock, self-sabotaging behavior can be dealt with by offering a support system that helps persons to adapt by making them aware that their condition is not an anomaly.
Such persons are like fish out of water. So, the most charitable thing one could do for them is to re-create an environment in which they can operate and feel comfortable.
However, one does not always have the choice to just walk away from such behaviors. In such cases, one may need to do some adapting in order to more effectively manage the undesirable behaviors.
Ultimately, as a leader, one is required to be flexible in managing different types of behaviors while maintaining team productivity. So, you’d need to ask yourself, “Am I being flexible enough?” (Not in the sense of accepting the undesirable behavior, but rather in the sense of managing it.)
Trevor Modeste, MBA, PMP
One of the traits of someone who’s hell-bent on self-sabotaging is putting down others. When you stir ……., that person smells of it.
Karen Fawcett
Paranoia, not trusting anyone including yourself is flatly self-sabotaging – People engage in this insulting behavior because they have been hurt in the past and are afraid it will happen again. They can’t get past it or let it go. It is crippling. It is fear and fear alone. ‘You need faith in God, in people and learn to trust again and then the fear will disappear. I will walk away from someone who keeps making the same mistakes over and over again. Most of these people lie to themselves as well as others.
Barbara Ingetti
Self sabotage starts with the expectation that everything needs to be perfect. The pursuit of perfection has a few outcomes, one being the waiting game… waiting for everything to be perfect before starting – waiting for the perfect copy to be written before posting an ad, waiting for the perfect photo or the perfect letterhead, waiting until next week so we can start fresh, etc.before truly taking a step towards completing our goals. In this way, we self sabotage projects by making them more complicated than they need to be and never really commit to the process.
Stacy Nelson
Are you refering to behavior’s in one’s personal life or professional? Some overlap but others do not.
Nancy Cottam