Elizabeth Edwards learns a lesson about psychological size

Elizabeth Edwards was on the Today Show with Matt Lauer last week. She was discussing her failed marriage and things that led up to it. She learned a valuable leadership lesson when she read about herself in the book Game Changer. Her mistake is a common one for leaders and people in prominent positions - not understanding the importance and power of psychological size.

Mrs. Edwards said "I thought of the people who worked in the campaign not as people who worked for John or worked for me, but as people with whom I worked. I thought of us as equals... If I argued about a policy, I thought I was arguing as an equal. Clearly they didn't have that perception -- they thought I was the boss's wife. I didn't take that into consideration." When the boss is a senator and a presidential candidate being the boss's wife is indeed a position of power.

Psychological size refers to the perception that others can have of people in positions of power, authority, or expertise. As business professionals move up the ladder from individual contributor to manger to director to VP, they often still think of themselves as just good old Jane or Joe. They don’t realize that others perceive them as having larger psychological size because of the power that formal organizational authority confers on them. Everything they say, everything they do is now larger than life and has great power to influence others for good or bad.

We refer to this as the Bruce Springsteen effect. We tell our leader clients to imagine they are like Bruce Springsteen at concert – “he is up on the 25 foot screen, broadcast at 10 times his actual size – every bead of sweat on his brow and every coin in his jeans eminently visible.”

That is what every leader must envision when she opens her mouth or makes any moves. As Mrs. Edwards realized too late, whether or not she is aware of the power of her psychological size, others will expect true leadership behavior and judge her harshly if not demonstrated. As a leader, she must remember that she is always on the big screen.