When Pride Becomes an Obstacle
- Theodoros Ploiarchopoulos
- May 25
- 2 min read
Let me introduce you to what management really is.
If you think about it carefully, management is not about KPIs, algorithms, or technicalities. Those are tools.
Management is not profitability either. That is an outcome.
Management is the handling - excuse the blunt term - of people, processes, and direction. It is about enabling teams to provide the KPIs that indicate the current status, developing algorithms that help forecast outcomes, and deploying technical solutions that reduce time, improve efficiency, and refine operational frameworks.
It is also the art of managing people collaboratively in a way that inspires, encourages, and drives them toward a certain direction, not necessarily one openly communicated to everyone within the company.
Above all, management is about paving new paths, whether entirely new or previously implemented in another organization, that add value to the entity, its people, and ultimately the market.
During this process, many obstacles emerge. And if you ask me, the hardest obstacle to overcome is human capital that becomes “offended” by change and defensive toward adjustment.
What is often overlooked is the pride of individuals or groups who, during periods of transformation, feel “judged” and immediately shift into defensive mode regarding their knowledge, position, or even background.
Pride, as a byproduct of culture, is difficult to challenge. It grows and develops within every group of people, from families and social circles to corporations and entire nations. It then expands into wider arenas such as workplaces, international trade, and even foreign policy.
And pride is the vicious enemy of maturity.
Therefore, the question should not be whether someone is a productive C-level executive or an effective leader, as I often read.
The real question is whether there is a collective and genuine decision to change and improve. Whether there is a risk registry in place that provides a safe path toward development. Whether there is a real vision to move even a single meter forward.
The question is not how to change a culture or how to tiptoe around individual or collective pride.
The question is how prepared and determined an organization truly is to do what it constantly proclaims.
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