Placing Someone on a Pedestal Guarantees They Will Fall & So Will You

Worshipping anyone creates a false distance between yourself and others that minimizes your worth and sets the other person up for failure as well.

Photo by Rojem Cajan on Unsplash

Growing up in an Asian immigrant household all but ensured that I would always pay deference to those who are more “senior” to me. The necessity of observing hierarchy — in the house, at school, and any other social setting — is one of my first childhood memories.

From who spoke first, to where you sat at dinner, to how you addressed different people in the room, proper behaviors should be dictated by seniority. It was drummed into me early and often to make sure I didn’t muck up the social infrastructure that was such a deep part of my family’s cultural past.

It’s no surprise that I defaulted to being a diligent soldier at school, in activities outside of school, and in the workplace. I didn’t just observe the rules, they were deeply wired into me.

Someone more senior, more seasoned, more successful than me had earned their role and the associated privileges, and therefore, must deserve my unbounded respect and likely some measure of awe.

I was just a lowly underling that needed to prove my worth.

Thankfully, I also have a rebellious side, a part of me that could call B.S. when something didn’t make sense to me.

It took some time for this part of me to reveal itself. It was what made me wonder if the facade of hierarchy might not always be the right answer.

It started with my father.

I worshipped his knowledge, his double engineering degrees, and his ability to solve nearly any problem. But over time, I noticed how he would talk down to my mother, my brother, and me. I noticed how his derogatory comments would make me feel. I noticed that others who knew more than me didn’t speak to me in such a condescending way and didn’t make me feel small.

My father was the first person on my pedestal and he was the first person that fell off. It was painful. I felt betrayed — the person I had trusted as my gold standard was fallible. It felt like a part of my worldview was destroyed.

Then in high school, I had a similar realization when I saw my teachers struggling to create a utopian learning environment. I was part of the second graduating class of a now nationally recognized magnet school that focused on science and technology. Back then, however, the whole thing was an experiment and the adults that I thought knew it all… well, they didn’t. What classes to offer, how to manage unruly and exceptionally smart teens, even how to structure our days — it was all trial and error.

Over time, I was able to reset my perspective on both my father and my high school teachers.

I was able to see them more fully as they were — people who mattered in my life and who cared about me, but who were not superheroes that were bulletproof and immune to bad habits or poor decisions.

I saw them as human.

This was a big win for me — to shift away from judging them first as too good and then later as not good enough. To see them as they were — people trying to do their best, but imperfect in their behaviors and outcomes — and to fully appreciate them. That was the win.

Yet even as I progressed in my views of people in my personal life, I had a harder time humanizing senior people in the workplace.

Something about the system of working for pay made me struggle to see clearly.

Leaders senior to me possessed almost supernatural powers in my mind — they knew more, they controlled more, they were the gods that determined my future and the future of those around me.

Learning from places like Wharton and taking on roles in industries like investment banking reinforced this perspective.

Only when I was in media, filled with bombastic personalities and a healthy load of bloat did I first start to question my extreme deference. Too many decisions didn’t make sense. Too many people didn’t seem to be pulling their weight. I became a bit disgruntled at first.

With time, I learned to balance my skepticism with my default “fall into line” orientation. This helped me challenge senior executives, including the CEO, and allowed me to develop a reputation as someone who would speak openly and candidly.

I still erred on the side of being diplomatic. More often than not, I would wait longer than was necessary to raise an issue, doing my best to verify and double-check my gut before speaking up for fear of misstepping. But if I felt something was off, I always spoke up.

This worked for me for years across multiple industries.

Until I didn’t.

You stop seeing clearly when you put someone on a pedestal.

I met a highly charismatic leader at one point in my career who I felt was extraordinary. Her vision of her business, of the world was mesmerizing. She worked extremely hard, fully embodying the concept of “leading by example”.

I held her in the highest regard and then I made the unfortunate decision to put her on a pedestal.

She had hired me to be her partner and collaborator, thoughtfully getting to know me and how I operated over months. She wasn’t looking for a “yes woman,” and I hadn’t billed myself as one. Quite the opposite, I had prided myself on being thrown out of other executive rooms for being brave enough to say “no” when what was being asked was ridiculous and a terrible idea.

Sadly in this new working relationship, instead of using my judgment and my years of cultivating a different way of relating to people higher on the hierarchical ladder, I reverted to my default behavior: to defer to her, my boss.

I created a false narrative that she knew it all, and I could never know enough.

As I elevated her, I diminished myself.

I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it. Something had gone upside down and topsy-turvy in my brain. I started to behave like a small child in terms of how I made sense of this leadership dynamic.

I was constantly asking for feedback, becoming a bottleneck for key workstreams and my team. I would waste time redoing work because I wasn’t able to convey my thinking clearly or confidentially. I second-guessed my thinking and reversed decisions regularly, confusing my team, and delaying key workstreams.

As I acquiesced to her point of view over and over again, she began to question my judgment. She hadn’t hired me to play Simon Says with her, where I simply just did as she said. She had hired me to be an intellectual, operational, and executive partner.

A great partner thinks independently, challenges your thinking, provides constructive criticism, and sees themselves as an equal.

I was doing none of those things.

The worst part? I was choosing to not be a great partner and I didn’t even know it.

I was so wrapped in my fears that I was completely unaware of how tightly I gripped my view that she was superior to me and that I was not as worthy and not as capable as her.

Even when I finally began to see her flaws and gaps, I unfairly judged her for them because I had painted her as infallible. When you elevate someone to untouchable status in your mind, you are creating an impossible standard that they can never fulfill.

Meanwhile, you keep yourself so small, trapping your potential in a cage you don’t even know you created.

Everyone loses.

It took me years to realize how damaging my story was to our relationship and to the organization. It took significant coaching and hours of meditative reflection for me to step out of my story enough to see what I had concocted.

I am deeply grateful that we remained friends despite all that happened — she was too forgiving to view my mistakes as an indictment.

But for a long time, I was also deeply ashamed. I was ashamed of the time I wasted making myself small and the decisions I made during this time that were less than stellar because I was unconsciously letting fear and old patterns dictate how I behaved.

Learning from mistakes is painful but essential to growing as a leader.

I don’t live with many regrets and instead choose to see past actions as opportunities to learn and improve. If I have any regrets, it would be from this particular period in my career.

Sometimes, to truly change, you need a truly catastrophic experience to cement your understanding and provide the visceral reminder you need in the future. That is what this period ultimately did for me.

I’m not entirely free from my shame or from the tendency to be deferential. But now I am highly aware of these feelings and can catch them before I unconsciously direct my behavior.

Now, when I enter a room, meet a senior leader, engage an executive client, I acknowledge all that they bring to the table without diminishing my own value and power. This might have happened simply with age and experience, but I’d like to think the very vivid and painful experience I had was what I needed to finally stop my unhelpful tendency to unrealistically elevate others and lower myself.

How you can avoid the pitfalls of putting someone on a pedestal.

If you have same tendency as I did, you can learn from my mistakes.

1. Identify when you are putting someone on a pedestal

There are a number of signals that you are creating unhelpful distance with someone:

• You use words like “exceptional” or “extraordinary” to describe the person

• You find yourself seeking out feedback from them more than is necessary

• You tell yourself that they “know it all” and you “don’t know enough”

• You experience anxiety regularly when you need their approval

• You second guess yourself when you around them

• You avoid conflict with them out of fear

2. Remind yourself they are only human

Visualize the person you are dealing with in their younger days or as someone who has and can make mistakes. Seeing them as fallible helps you reframe your orientation to them.

Another useful perspective is to remember that if you respect the person, you won’t set them up negatively. Putting someone on a pedestal guarantees they will fail because no one is perfect. Instead, see them as occupying an important role that you should respect but not worship.

3. Stay focused on your objectives and values

How you interact should be always be grounded in your values and what you want to achieve. If you stay focused on what matters most, you will behave more strategically versus out of fear. For example, you’ll manage conflict productively, provide constructive feedback, and be willing to disagree if you feel strongly instead of avoiding challenging conversations.

4. Discover how you strengthen each other

It’s OK to value someone else’s strengths, but not at the cost of diminishing your own. Instead, find ways in which you can complement each other. Take stock of where they are strong and then where you are strong. Then, explore and experiment with how your skills can add to theirs and vice versa.

This can work even if someone is far more senior or possesses more decision-making power if you see each interaction as an opportunity to do more discovery and to test and learn,

By seeing people who are more senior than you, more powerful than you, more skilled or experienced than you as people who, just like you, have something to contribute and not as unapproachably superior, you will not only have a better chance of building a meaningful relationship, you will have a better chance of contributing more to your common objectives.

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