Yesterday (July 11th) was a fabulous Sunday! First there was Men Singles Wimbledon Tennis Championship where Novak Djokovic won it for the sixth time and then in the Euro 2020 Football Championship which concluded this morning past 3.30am IST, Italy beat England in the penalty shootout. It is simply remarkable to see how sportsmen push themselves harder to be best in their field, improve their world rankings each year and play their heart out. Competitiveness thus is a measure of a person’s strong desire to surpass others or be more successful than them.

At one point or another we have all enjoyed being part of some kind of competition and competing can actually be fun when you win. But competitions have the undesirable quality of being a “zero-sum” game (i.e., in order for you to win, someone else must lose).

Highly competitive people are more likely to see every situation as a competition, even when there is no explicit winner or loser. For example, they may compare their jobs, salaries, life style (where they stay, how big their home is, brand of car they drive etc), general social status and even social media popularity to that of their friends even though there is no explicit reward for having one or the other. Such people measure their self-worth by comparing themselves to others. More often than not these comparisons tend to be with people they know and are more emotionally invested in (like friends, colleagues or extended family) than with strangers.

Competition is everywhere in modern society and in some cultures more than others. My heart breaks when I see parents distressed about kindergarten and nursery admissions for their toddlers. It is so competitive! These tensions continue when children are seeking admissions into good schools, sitting for competitive exams for University admissions and then the race to get the best jobs. Well even in finding love or a partner there seems to be increasingly a lot of competition sometimes.

Healthy levels of competition can help improve self-esteem and increase enjoyment of life. It can also motivate people to work harder toward their goals. On the other hand it can also disrupt a person’s daily life, cause emotional burnout and cause alienation. Such hyper competitive people who feel the need to win at all costs may develop chronic feelings of inadequacy because they cannot be the best in every aspect of life!

In my professional experience it is a must that leaders focus more on building collaborative skills for their own leadership impact and that of those whom they lead.

You may want to reflect on the following:

1. Are you competitive ?

2. Who are you measuring yourself against ?

3. Have you experienced hyper competitive people in your personal or professional life? What was that like?

(This article first appeared on the WiP page on July 12, 2021. I am the founder of WiP which is a cohort of like minded talented women who help each other grow in a fun filled, judgement free manner!)