We live together, throughout professional life, with leaders of all types: inspirational, rigid, fair, omitted, insecure. But there is one type in particular that marks us deeply — the leader taken by his own ego. He who confuses authority with vanity, recognition with control, and mission with personal protagonism.
At first, We think he's just someone difficult. Over time, We understand that what is at stake is the emotional structure of the entire organization. An inflated ego is not a harmless eccentricity — it has concrete effects: mutes teams, inhibits innovation, paralyzes successions, distorts the culture. But there's something I've learned over the years that I need to share: dealing with this type of leadership, no matter how challenging it is, also teaches us. Very.
“When we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Viktor Frankl
Frankl, when dealing with the meaning we can give even to the most adverse situations, offers a powerful key to this topic. Why, when facing egoic leaders, we are called to position ourselves more clearly: what am I doing here? What am I becoming in this environment? To what extent is it worth adapting — and when is it time to preserve my integrity?
Often, the leader's ego invites us to a dangerous game: that of constant comparison. We begin to doubt our importance, of our capacity, of our trajectory. But there is the central point: It’s not about overcoming someone else’s ego — it’s about not allowing it to distort our value. Toxic leadership can also be our greatest mirrors — revealing our hidden strengths and the limits we need to learn to impose.
I have met professionals who, when they feel diminished by their leaders, there they found the impulse to change their area, company or even country. Others, when they notice the emptying of the environment, decided to study more, undertake, innovate. And some, with enormous wisdom, chose to remain — but with a new stance, more strategic and less dependent on external validation.
The leader's ego, no matter how oppressive it is, no need to imprison us. He can, paradoxically, remind us of what we don't want to be. And it can challenge us to cultivate the kind of presence that doesn't need to shout to be heard., nor control to be respected.
Ending this series with this look is, for me, a gesture of reconciliation with reality. Not all leadership will be inspiring. Not every manager will know how to deal with their own ego. But there will always be room for us to choose who we want to be on this path — even when everything around us seems to point to the opposite..
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