“Beware the self-righteous man, for he will destroy the world many times over before he sees his folly.” (Stewart Stafford)

Two interesting blogs appeared in my in-tray recently:

5 Ways to Handle People Who Always Think They’re Right

People who think their opinions are superior to others are most prone to overestimating their relevant knowledge and ignoring chances to learn more

For those who know the 7MTF/Humm model of temperament it takes about six seconds to realise that both blogs are dealing with the Politician component.

As it says on my website if you ask people high in the Politician component where they’re going in life or what they should do next there’ll be no hesitation from them. Delighted to be asked their opinion, these people will quickly tell you what they think.  The spoken and written words are the P’s stock in trade.  Politicians are convinced their beliefs are superior to other people’s.

As the second study demonstrates the irony is that those people with the highest belief superiority also tended to have the largest gap between their perceived and actual knowledge – Politicians consistently suffer from the illusion that they were better informed than they are.  The problem is that the belief your opinion is better than other people’s not only tends to be associated with overestimation of your relevant knowledge but despite being badly informed compared to their self-perception, Politicians choose to neglect sources of information that would enhance their knowledge and improve their decision making.

As the first blog states if you are dealing with a Politician who has low Regulator/Normal it can be very difficult.  Their low self-control means that they can be especially assertive, opinionated and direct.  I completely disagree with first two items of advice given in the blog: Don’t try too hard to diagnose the person’s personality disorder and Recognize that the individual’s behaviour stems from low emotional intelligence.  I would suggest the complete opposite Do try to diagnose the EQ components of a person and never arrogantly think they have low EQ.

On the other hand I do agree with points 3 & 5: Don’t get rattled and Keep the lines of communication open.  If you want see this in action check out this video of Ian Neal on my website where he describes how he dealt with a CEO who had very high P in his temperament.  That is a classic example of high Emotional Intelligence.

Point number 4 is Put the mirror to yourself before you conclude the other person is at fault.  However the point in the article about there might be a germ of truth in the Politician’s argument is trivial.  The first step in emotional intelligence is understanding yourself.  Do the PEQAS on my website and look in the mirror.

This blog first appeared on my LinkedIn page:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beware-self-righteous-man-he-destroy-world-many-times-golis/?published=t

 

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