Is this about the issue — or about ego?

Ego is not a diagnosis

Here, ego is shorthand for wanting to protect a particular image of yourself: competent, important, composed or right. It is one possible interpretation of a situation, not a diagnosis of a person. A firm refusal can be justified. A sharp tone may reflect time pressure. Not every disagreement is a hidden struggle over self-worth.

That makes the question more useful as self-reflection than as a label for someone else: What am I defending right now? A substantive position? A legitimate interest? Or the idea that my judgment must not be corrected?

When an objection feels threatening

A fictional example: An employee raises a risk in an already announced project. Instead of examining the risk, the leader explains how long they have worked in the business. The concern may be unfounded. But nobody is better able to evaluate it after that answer.

One possible dynamic is that the objection is being received as a challenge to competence rather than as information. This is a hypothesis. We can first examine the observable interaction: Were questions asked? Was the risk assessed? Could the initial view be revised?

Fast, Burris and Bartel examined managerial self-efficacy, defensive responses and employee voice. Their findings make self-protection a plausible explanation for some responses. They do not allow us to infer an individual’s motives from one meeting. [1]

Three questions instead of a character judgment

First, what did we observe? A concern being interrupted three times is different from a colleague being a narcissist. Second, what substantive question remains unanswered? Third, what would be an appropriate way to examine it now?

This distinction applies to our own reactions too. When I feel overlooked, I may want to prove my value and defend a position more strongly than I otherwise would. That does not automatically invalidate the argument. It gives me another question worth asking myself.

Return to the issue without humiliating anyone

One possible invitation is: I would like to separate the substantive question from who raised it. What criterion would help us assess this? Another is: We do not have to agree immediately. Can we first clarify which risk is being described?

These are conversation prompts, not guaranteed de-escalation techniques. Power, history and people’s willingness matter. A room where disagreement is punished cannot reliably be made safe by one particularly skillful sentence.

In your own leadership, one small experiment is to restate an objection in your own words before evaluating it. Not to perform agreement, but to check whether you are responding to it or simply defending yourself.

Understanding does not require excusing

Psychological understanding can help explain a stuck interaction. It does not oblige you to accept repeated humiliation. Even if insecurity contributes, behaviour and the use of power still deserve to be addressed.

In coaching I would keep both directions open: What affects me here, and what can I influence in my own response? And what belongs to someone else’s behaviour or a problematic system? The second question should not disappear because the first is interesting.