Perception is Reality? Wrong

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought more than its fair share of leadership challenges to me. Just this past weekend I had two conversations where it was repeated, "Well, perception is reality." The context of these conversations were that people took things out of context, or generated opinions based on grossly exaggerated and even made up stories from certain organizational experiences.

This term seemed to show up in my workplace maybe 8 years ago. It never sat right with me. It still doesn't; in fact it doesn't sit with me at all. And this is not a coincidence; it entered at the beginning and was perpetuated at the height of our organizations most turbulent times.

The problem with this saying is that, well, it's not true. Reality is reality. We out to be accountable to how our opinions and lenses influence, change and color what really happens. And more importantly, in leadership, our role and goal should be to bring people as close as possible to the truth. Let me explain.

Here's a simplified scenario. Joe is having a bad day. He just got news that his child is very sick. He's anxious and needs to get some fresh air. Joe gets up from his desk and starts walking to the door. On his way to the door, he passes Rob. Rob says, "Hi," but Joe, preoccupied with his thoughts, just looks at Rob and walks past. Joe never says a word.

Rob, feeling slighted, walks over to Steve's desk. Rob is irritated and wants to get others on board with what a jerk Joe is. "Can you believe Joe? What an asshole. He saw me and heard me say hello, and he totally ignored me! He totally thinks he's better than me!"

Rob has a perception. His perception is not reality. It's a story he made up and added to an event that happened. What actually happened was that Rob and Joe passed each other, Rob said hi and Joe did not. The rest is all made up by Rob.

This happens on a much larger scale, too. Organizationally decisions are made and conversations are had that not everyone agrees with. Those in disagreement have tendencies to add on to what actually happened. In fact, their additions are often the generation point of their disagreement. This is where complaints are birthed and usually sound like; "This place doesn't give a shit about us," or "They're out to get us."

Then it happens. People say, "Well, you know, perception is reality." What they're really saying though is, "I don't want to deal with it." It shifts personal responsibility into outer space as if there's nothing to be done about it except to accept all the falsely created “truths.” It shifts responsibility from the creator of the falsity to everyone else! Often times we even spend time and energy trying to fix the perception as if it were the truth! (Related: The people who have tendencies to add on to reality and generate false complaints (inaccurate perceptions) will quickly generate new ones. These are the people who tend towards drama and have an exaggerated sense of self-importance.)

Perception is Reality is something that's said which keeps ourselves unaccountable, and keeps organizations stuck. It's passive-aggressive. It keeps us from leading courageously, from having tough conversations and from holding ourselves and those around us to a higher standard. It impedes high performance.

Okay, listen; it's important to get into other people's worlds. In fact it’s a critical component of leadership. It's actually the access point to get people as close to the truth as possible. It gets us related, builds trust and gives us keen insights into why and where the perceptions were created. But that doesn't mean we ought to just allow everyone's false perceptions to run unchecked. These false perceptions turn into conversations and those conversations turn into the undermining cancers of our relationships, of our organizations and of our own lives. And remember, silence is consent. When you keep your mouth shut, you agree.

Great leaders have a skillset to help others see things differently, to leave people feeling empowered and inspired. It’s not enough to just tell people to stop, or order them to do something different. While certainly important when putting out fires, it’s never going to make a difference for the person or the organization. It’s not a solution. It’s a fix. A patch. If we really want to make a difference for our people and our organizations, it’s imperative that we learn how to not only get people to recognize what they’re doing but the impact of what they’re doing; it’s imperative we learn how to give people access to their blind spots. This can never happen unless we are more committed to our people, organization and profession than we are to being comfortable.

This all start with you. The leader. The single most important part of leadership is that you must do the work. To lead the work, you must live the work. So start by giving yourself the two tongue test; is the tongue in your mouth moving in the same direction as the tongue in your shoe?

One of the keys to living a powerful life is getting the impact all your meaningless meaning is having on you and everything around you, and one of the keys to powerful leadership is getting others to the same place. Take it on. I promise you it’s worth it.