Every fear hides a wish—David Mamet in Edmond

When I work with my clients to deal with their career issues one of the first items that we address is to have a personal leadership narrative that you own and the one you can confidently project during you career explorations, interviews, and job search. Although we work on it during making of their résumé, doing mock interview practice, and showing them how to have executive presence in every interaction with others, it does not always take hold in the most critical of times, which is where it matters the most.

Why do I say that?

Let me give a few recent examples:

One client had waited two years before finding the right opening at one of the top companies that interested him—it was his dream company and job. We spent time preparing his résumé that told a great story and when he got calls for initial phone interviews, we did mock practice sessions to respond to recruiter, peer, and hiring manager interview questions. As a result, he breezed through the initial telephone gauntlet and was invited to the on-site interviews with six different people in as many rounds. Here, too, we had another round of practice interviews, including technical, behavioral, and brain-teaser questions. We practiced their responses until he felt confident to face the final round. Yet, when it came down to clearing the final round the client came short and was disheartened to receive their rejection.

Puzzled by what might have gone wrong, despite our elaborate preparation I requested the client for an interview debrief and was shocked to uncover how he had sabotaged himself by greatly underplaying his own strong hand.

Here is what happened:

In one of the interview-rounds the interviewer asked my client how he considered himself in his proficiency on one of the technical skills critical to that job. I knew my client had done great work, both on his own and with leading his team (a team of seven specialists reported to him in his current role) using that specific skill, so his response should have been other than what he provided. The interviewer asked my client, On a scale of 1-10 how he would rate himself on that technical skills. Without giving it much thought, to show his modesty, my client blurted out, I consider myself a 3/10 on that skill. I know that for the work he had done in this area he was an 8/10 or above, but to show his modesty and deal with the fear that he might be challenged during the interview with a specific question that might come up if he had responded that way, he covered himself by giving that highly discounted response to his detriment.

In yet another interview during the same round an interviewer asked my client how he saw himself as an effective leader, again on a scale of 1-5 this time. His immediate response was that he saw himself as a 2/5, again using the same discounted formula.

Despite all other interviews going well my client was not able to clear the rounds to qualify for an offer at this dream company he had worked so hard to get into during the past two years. So, why did he respond this way and what should have been his response?

It is hard to imagine what was going through is mind at the time these questions came up, but from what he told me in our debrief, he wanted to sound modest, instead of sounding overconfident. He was also afraid that if had responded with a higher rating for himself “9/10,” he feared that the interviewer may confront him with a difficult question in that area and he was afraid that he may fumble it. So, he took a safer route and shot himself in the foot, both times.

So, what should have been his response to questions that were asked, where he had to rate himself on his skill level? My suggestion is that if you feel unsure what rating to accord yourself, fearing a high rating may result in some trick question that may stump you, exposing you as a fraud or an imposter, it is best to give a safe answer and say, I am not sure what rating I can give myself, but I consider myself very effective in how I apply this skill on an everyday basis, both in my hands-on challenges and in leading my team. Such an answer does not sound arrogant, but at the same time precludes self-disparagement, which was my client’s original strategy and it backfired on him, as you can see from what happened.

The psychology behind why these setbacks keep happening to us, despite our great accomplishments and skill levels, can be attributed to how we sabotage ourselves when we are confronted in our time of need to save ourselves. Because in the times of our need how we manifest is driven by how we tell our own stories to ourselves. The quote at the head of this blog captures this well, Every fear hides a wish, from a line in a play, Edmond, by David Emet. Alternatively, this same sentiment is expressed by yet another pithy statement: You become what you fear. In a general way, we attract what we feel, both good and bad. So, how we program our mind with the messages we send ourselves has a lot to do with how we manifest our destiny. In this case my client perhaps felt that he was not good enough to rate himself at the top of his game for the fear that he may be challenged by a question that would stump him, so he took the safer route and tanked.

Turning this mindset on its head, just imagine how much power you can wield if you saw yourself as the best candidate for the role or for the job and verbalized and communicated accordingly, as he might have been able to do by stating to the interviewer how effective he was at what he did. His natural response should have been, I do not know how to rate myself on that scale, but one thing I can say with certainty that I am very effective in how I practice that skill, as already mentioned above

Such sabotaging happens even in places and times that do not always put you on the spot, such as a job interview.

In yet another “use case,” a client, who was a senior manager at a high-tech company was vying for his next director-level promotion. He was in his current role for four years and had done well to deserve that promotion. So, as the review cycle approached he got increasingly apprehensive about the impending promotion and began to imagine things that vitiated his promotion prospects. His boss and skip boss were both observing him critically to assess his promotion potential for the director level, so when he asked his boss about that possibility his boss was coy in his response, because he did not want to betray the outcome to surprise him when the promotion would be approved. My client took that to mean that he was not going to get that promotion, otherwise, he thought, the boss would have reacted differently.

Taking that miscue, my client privately started criticizing the boss, openly started talking about how unfair the company was, and started getting on the bad side of top executives. Although all of this, on his part, was imagined and gratuitous the signal he was transmitting during that anxious period for him militated against him. He did not get that promotion and he decided to leave the company, only to accept a job one level below his current title at another company, taking on the role of a manager. Now you can see how you manifest what you feel—he became what he feared by openly exhibiting that fear or his apprehension about not getting that promotion!

The lesson here is how to keep sending positive signals to yourself, not just during your “showtimes,” such as job search and interviews, but 24X7. Unless we believe in the stories we tell ourselves no one is going to believe what you say, not matter how loudly you say it!

Good luck!