Thoughts on Self-Esteem

Welcome to Headhunter Secrets, where I’ll share perspectives about the search business. We hope you’ll use our services to execute searches. Nonetheless, I wanted to give you some insights I’ve gained from doing search work since I was 23 years old.

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Thoughts on Self-Esteem
You can grow it

Economics is often described as the study of scarce resources and how human beings allocate them. We usually think of these resources as money, hard assets, and capital. Too often we forget about the resource that is labor—humans and their potential. At the end of the day, labor is the most difficult resource to understand, value, and manage.

Why are workers so difficult to motivate and lead? It’s because everyone has a different combination of raw intellect and life experiences, which together form our level of self-esteem.

Self-esteem is the internal assessment of our personal worth and capability. Maybe it’s something we are born with, but for sure it is something we earn (or not) as we experience life.

Self-esteem is not merely feeling good about oneself. It is believing oneself capable of confronting and overcoming challenges.

People who believe they are capable are more likely to take risks, pursue opportunities, and persist through adversity. People who doubt their worth often leave opportunities unexplored, talents undeveloped, and ambitions unrealized.

High self-esteem keeps us grounded no matter life experience, whether positive or negative. Positive outcomes certainly fill our tank of self-esteem, so to speak, but the best “octane” comes from overcoming challenges. Right-place-at-the-right-time success can feed confidence, while overcoming challenges feeds self-esteem.

Poor self-esteem keeps us off balance, unsure of how to act when facing a possible negative outcome. Rather than motivating us to tackle a problem, low self-esteem fuels a fear of failure and compels us to avoid challenges. Let someone else take the risk. Let someone else fail. Let someone else take responsibility.

People with high self-esteem are inclined to take responsibility for mistakes and share responsibility for success. People with low self-esteem often blame others for mistakes and take all credit for success.

Michael Jordan said “I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. What I can’t accept is not trying.”

Thomas Edison said it another way. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Elon Musk craves failure because he has very high self-esteem. He knows failure improves his ability to make even better decisions.

The good news is that there is a way to build self-esteem. It takes a conscious and proactive effort, if even small, to face a challenge. Even if you don’t get the outcome you want, facing the challenge alone will offer self-esteem. Put another way: Facing a challenge is a win no matter what. It also creates a virtuous cycle, giving you a bit more courage when you face the next challenge, and so on.

Reminds me of a quote from the film We Bought a Zoo, when the main character, played by Matt Damon, says: “You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

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Hope these insights are helpful.

We at Leyendecker have been doing search work for 40 years. We’ve completed over 100 C-level searches, most for CFOs. Most have been PE portfolio companies, but we’ve also helped owner/managed and publicly-held companies. Our placements have helped their employers go through almost 50 successful liquidity events.

Keep us in mind when you seek talent that will get you over the goal line. We hope you’re having a great year!

Doug