I have a highly brilliant Chief Technology Officer who delivers incredible results but has a massive ego and high self-orientation, which is destroying trust and making the rest of the leadership team defensive. How do we lower this self-orientation to restore trust?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Trust on a leadership team is governed by a simple equation: trust is the sum of credibility, reliability, and intimacy, divided by self-orientation. Your Chief Technology Officer clearly has high credibility and reliability, but their high self-orientation, which manifests as a constant focus on their own status, ego, and department, is tanking their overall trustworthiness. When self-orientation is high, the rest of the leadership team feels unsafe, and they will naturally go into a defensive posture, destroying healthy conflict. To fix this, you must have a direct, unsentimental conversation. Define self-orientation clearly for them. Explain that their focus on being the smartest person in the room is actively diminishing their influence and slowing down the company. Shift their focus from individual brilliance to team success. Have them practice active listening during your Level 10 Meetings by requiring them to summarize the perspectives of other leaders before offering their own solution during IDS. They must transition from trying to win every debate to helping the team find the best answer for the greater good of the business. If they cannot make this shift and continue to put their ego ahead of the leadership team, you have a Core Values alignment issue, regardless of their technical brilliance. You cannot build a healthy, high-performing executive team when one member is consistently driving up the emotional friction for everyone else.