The Over-Competitive Personality and Accompanying Reputation Risk
A look at an "image cultivator"
In our competitive nature to succeed for others and especially ourselves at the highest level, we may not always, or often, act in ways that treat people well and inspire trust and respect. Maybe we don’t care about that at all. Maybe, however, we should.
Certain professional fields could be more competitive than others and of course, certain personalities attack opportunities in a greater way than their peers.
Chris Paul is an example. His competitiveness and commitment to his profession has paid off. The future Basketball Hall-of-Fame player has had himself a big-and-large career, as a 12-time All Star, 11-time All NBA, a nine-time member of the All Defensive team and a place on the league’s 75th anniversary team. His performance, from an individual standpoint, has been superlative.
In the culture of that profession, this level of play plus the competitive nature it took to achieve it is usually met with nothing but profound respect. Not everyone enjoys the personality and behavior though that often goes along with it. They tolerate it.
Isabel Gonzalez just wrote about it at CBS Sports, detailing what former NBA official Bill Spooner told The Athletic (subscription-based access).
“… I get asked all the time: 'Who are some of the tough guys, some of the bad guys?'" Spooner said. "And when I tell them that Chris Paul, in my 32 years in the league, was one of the biggest assholes I ever dealt with, they say, 'Not (the notorious explosive) Rasheed Wallace … or da-da-da?' Nope. Nothing like (Paul).
"And they are like, 'Oh, he seems like such a nice guy.' And I say, 'Yeah, he's a great image cultivator.'"
Paul is probably not overly unnerved by that statement, just as fellow greats in that profession, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant weren’t, yet in your career maybe you do care about how others experience, perceive and judge you.
Maybe to get to where you want to go or be who you want to be personally, you want to be respected for how you treat others and not be thought of as a the biggest, self-impressed, socially-inept, relationship-retarded jerk.
Maybe you don’t want that reputation and then to make it worse, another reputation of covering up who you are and being called “a great image cultivator” when that is not a compliment. It means, you are presenting yourself as someone that you aren’t.
Sure, some people unjustly could have an axe to grind with you. That certainly can happen and does happen. For conversation sake, however, let’s talk about when an critical label is factually justified and unwanted on your behalf and could be infuriating to you, and on top of that, it is true that you have-and-are crafting an impressive image for yourself that isn’t aligned with the lower quality of your character.
Paul likely will “clap back” at Spooner in some manner or have an agent or publicist write a more measured retort. He may say he doesn’t care about the criticism. He cares. Most all of us do when we are criticized and especially when we know it to be false or feel it has some merit but yet is unjust. And our ego just doesn’t like to hear or read anything that is not glowing about us.
I suspect Paul will have friends and former competitors come out and support him.
Having people stand up and support us against criticism is a beautiful thing, if they are telling the (objective) truth.
Yet what if our attitude and behavior does need some time in the (figurative) shop, getting “fixed.” What if some hard, honest reflection does need to be done, our self awareness heightened to increased clarity and some serious attention paid, consistently, to improvement of how we see other people and treat them?
Will we be willing to think better and honorably, impressively respond in this valuable manner? Will we give ourselves a chance to build our character, treat others more sensitively, without rationalizing our past behavior and dismissing others now?
This is a grand opportunity to seize, even if it doesn’t feel good: to check ourselves for attitude-and-behavior “viruses” and successfully address them.
Our future selves will thank us for being humble and having committed to doing what was necessary and beneficial for us, now and with the people we encountered.
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Michael Toebe is a reputation consultant, advisor and communications specialist at Reputation Intelligence: Reputation Quality, assisting individuals and organizations with further building reputation as an asset or ethically and responsibly protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.
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Fully agree with you, Michael! I don’t like the overly aggressive / competitive type either… Unfortunately, some people are rewarded for their behavior so there’s no real incentive to stop. 😔