Leadership and Self-Deception

This third edition of an international bestseller—over 2 million copies sold worldwide and translated into 33 languages—details how its powerful insights on motivation, conflict, and collaboration can benefit organizations as well as individuals.

Since its original publication in 2000, Leadership and Self-Deception has become an international word-of-mouth phenomenon. Rather than tapering off, it sells more copies every year. The book's central insight—that the key to leadership lies not in what we do but in who we are—has proven to have powerful implications not only for organizational leadership but in readers' personal lives as well.

Leadership and Self-Deception uses an entertaining story everyone can relate to about a man facing challenges at work and at home to expose the fascinating ways that we blind ourselves to our true motivations and unwittingly sabotage the effectiveness of our own efforts to achieve happiness and increase happiness. We trap ourselves in a “box” of endless self-justification. Most importantly, the book shows us the way out. Readers will discover what millions already have learned—how to consistently tap into and act on their innate sense of what's right, dramatically improving all of their relationships.

This third edition includes new research about the self-deception gap in organizations and the keys to closing this gap. The authors offer guidance for how to assess the in-the-box and out-of-the-box mindsets in yourself and in your organization. It also includes a sample of Arbinger's latest bestseller, The Outward Mindset.