Characteristics of Leadership: Ego

Having an extreme ego doesn’t require someone to be unpleasant. In fact “being nice” is common, protecting them from scrutiny or criticism. Kindness is often conditional, however, lasting only as long as the other person is useful, admiring, or non-threatening. Once a person stops providing validation or poses a challenge, the façade of niceness often disappears.

For Alaskan business professionals, the cost of an unchecked ego is amplified by the state’s distinct relationship-based economy. In Alaska, defensiveness and arrogance, common to a person with an unhealthy ego, are not just character flaws—they are business liabilities. Trust, earned through years of respectful and transparent dealings, functions as the most valuable currency in the state.

A look at the thousands of Alaska Native corporation joint ventures, resource development agreements, co-stewardship and resource management projects, and remote community developments illustrates how Alaskans are especially interconnected. Commercial success often hinges on reputational capital gained from long-term collaborations. This is driven by the state’s combination of vast geography, limited infrastructure, deep reliance on natural resource sectors, and the significant economic and cultural influence of Alaska Native business and tribal entities.

Additionally, Alaska’s well-known ethos of “rugged individualism” values competence, humility, and the ability to work shoulder-to-shoulder, regardless of title. A leader who operates with an extreme ego—refusing feedback or hoarding credit—will quickly find that reputation preceding them, damaging the long-term trust essential for partnerships and talent retention.

Balancing Confidence with Humility

In the pursuit of sustainable performance, effective executives are moving past the trappings of personal ego, embracing humility and vulnerability as core strategic assets. I sat down with a leader with deep experience across public service, healthcare, and philanthropy—Gretchen Guess, president and CEO of the Rasmuson Foundation—to discuss how to lead with self-awareness and servitude. Her answers model how leaders can proactively seek criticism, cultivate dissent while promoting psychological safety, redefine failure, and embody humility.

Q: Can you share a time when you received candid, unexpected feedback that fundamentally challenged your self-perception or a strategic decision you had championed?

Guess: My career journey, spanning eight years in public service and fifteen in healthcare, has provided constant, unfiltered feedback. Early on, my first bill in my public service days taught me a tough lesson: I failed to build alignment. I acted with the best intentions, but I neglected the crucial step of engaging key stakeholders. The feedback—that I did not engage stakeholders in problem-solving or vetting my ideas—was the takeaway. In healthcare, particularly as a non-clinical leader in a clinical space, you quickly learn that if you want genuine impact, you must take the feedback offered by subject matter experts.

I now actively seek it out. I’m a strong believer in “rounding”—spending time with staff at all levels with no specific agenda—and analyzing anonymous surveys verbatim. Yes, it hurts to hear criticism, but you have to move past that initial sting and get to the other side. The benefit is in modeling that growth is possible, showing your team you’re committed to receiving feedback and getting better. My words and actions matter profoundly as a leader, and this modeling is key to setting the right culture.

Q: How do you invite and reward counterarguments and dissent in a decision-making process to ensure you’re building a culture where ideas are welcome from anywhere?

Guess: Healthcare has an excellent model for dissecting adverse events: any adverse outcome or near miss is studied to determine the root cause and corrections needed. When an issue occurs, healthcare professionals dissect the system, not the people involved. When you solely assign personal blame, you prevent systems of improvement.

Philanthropy can be more challenging than healthcare. There is no wrong way, no best practice, and fewer processes. I do my best to build an atmosphere where I want feedback and regularly change my approach based on what I learn. It is harder, though, the higher you go in leadership. Creating an atmosphere where people feel empowered is difficult and never-ending work. We are working to build genuine collaboration where even the most junior team member feels secure constructively challenging leadership.

Q: When an important project under your leadership fails to launch, how do you pick up the team afterward and ensure focus remains on growth rather than assigning personal blame?

Guess: As a leader, and now as a CEO, a project never fails; I have failed. Even if I’m not involved directly in the project, any failure is one of leadership, not the project or the team. The first step is to clarify the nature of the failure: Did the project fail completely, did it not go as planned? Or was it timing—just a fail for now? Often it’s a matter of poor alignment, timing, or bandwidth, not a fundamentally bad idea. If needed, I’ll jump into a project and just listen, trying to discern from those on a project what is causing the hiccup and providing the resources, direction, and adjustments needed.

Q: How do you approach leading subject matter experts on a complex problem, and how do you measure your own success by the achievements of the people who report to you?

Guess: Leading experts requires shifting my role from a leader to a facilitator. My job is not to provide the solution but to get the right people in the room, set the right parameters (in-bounds and out-bounds), and ask the right questions. While it can feel chaotic, there is a richness to the conversation that emerges from diversity of voices. When you empower a group and ask effective questions, they will develop a superior solution.

In terms of success, I believe in radical humility. My personal metric for success is entirely tied to the achievements of the people who report to me and the entire team. Ensuring recognition and credit are distributed—never hoarded—reinforces that I view my role as servitude. The goal is to maximize their impact, which is ultimately the strongest reflection of effective leadership. When I can be absent from the office or transition jobs, and my team functions well without me, I know I have succeeded.

Measuring & Taming Destructive Ego

Organizations with leaders who resist feedback and have transactional employee relationships are more likely to have high turnover and have trouble attracting top talent. Human resources management studies have long established a connection between job dissatisfaction, stress, emotional exhaustion, and workplace bullying. These firms are, on average, less profitable due in part to increased costs, reduced productivity, staff turnover, poor customer relations, and weak organizational knowledge with little ability to innovate.

While ego has no single dashboard metric, its presence is painfully clear through its effects on both individual behavior and organizational outcomes. Behavioral patterns, like defensiveness and arrogance, can be measured using tools like 360-degree feedback assessments and emotional intelligence (EQ) testing. For a hard look at the costs, examine organizational data:

• Employee turnover, especially in the most senior ranks.
• Results from Employee Engagement Surveys (a “trust” score).
• Frequency and severity of corporate ethical violations, lawsuits, or regulatory penalties.
• Sudden financial spiral caused by delayed innovation or market denial.

Developing self-awareness is the first step in moderating ego, ensuring it remains a positive driving force and not a destructive one. Consider some ego-taming techniques. Find a critic you trust—indeed, appoint one person on your team, an “ego auditor,” to help you see it. Model ego taming for others, for example by publicly owning a non-catastrophic mistake once a quarter to signal to your team that vulnerability is safe. Track your trust score by comparing your employee engagement survey results against high-turnover industries as a leadership metric.

The story of Jason the hypothetical executive director is a cautionary tale of the Power Paradox played out in real time. Taming the extreme ego is not just a soft skill—it is a strategic imperative for sustainable success in Alaska’s relationship economy. Prioritizing radical humility and servitude ensures accountability unlocks collective intelligence and builds the enduring trust that drives long-term organizational value.

Join us next month as we explore hubris.