Breaking The “Vicious Cycle of Workplace Insecurity” With Adam Galinsky

When we're insecure, we can feel vulnerable and threatened. We can get anxious, worrying about what’s next. Our first inclination might be to look inward, to protect what's ours. To view everything as a zero-sum game where there's a winner and a loser, and we'll do everything we can not to be the loser. However, Columbia Business School Professor Adam Galinsky’s research shows that we should actually do just the opposite. I talked to Galinsky about what he calls "the vicious cycle of insecurity," and how to break it.

When Anxiety Takes the Wheel

You know those moments when you feel like Chicken Little, convinced the sky is falling? Scarcity mindset kicks in and you're certain you'll never get another job, or that everyone's coming for you? Our status feels under threat.

Galinsky's research shows that we typically feel most insecure when:

- We're reminded of past failures

- We're in new environments with new responsibilities

- We believe others have better resources or opportunities for success

When people are feeling insecure, they want to increase their standing; they try to bolster their status by focusing on themselves and advertising their own accomplishments, says Galinsky. The last thing they want to do, says the study (co-authored by Maren Hoff and Derek D. Rucker) is make others look good. But the insecure miss opportunities to gain status by not elevating others, which only reinforces their initial insecurity. His new study provides evidence for this “vicious cycle” across 17 studies, “including a content analysis of people’s personal experiences with status insecurity, an archival analysis of the final speeches held on the reality TV show Survivor (using ChatGPT), and more than a dozen experimental studies.”

In one experiment, Galinsky and his team asked people who felt insecure at work to imagine they just got a promotion and to share the news on social media. The research team also created a scenario where both insecure and secure-feeling participants imagined they won a big venture capital competition, and were asked to write a victory speech sharing the big news. Insecure people tended to name only their own accomplishments, while other people thanked mentors and friends and teammates who helped along the way.

“Now, the reason why we call this the vicious cycle of insecurity,” says Galinsky, “is that we showed the posts and victory speeches to thousands of people on the internet.  And we asked them to rate how much status you would give this person. And we found that when they read the speech, they were more likely to give status to the people that acknowledged others, that thanked others, that expressed that gratitude.”

Listen here.

The pattern remained consistent, even when Galinsky’s team coded episodes of Survivor. Subjects rated the people as having higher status when they thanked other people. “Because there's something about being generous. Now, here's the problem. When we're insecure, we're anxious about our standing, it makes us more egocentric and focused on ourselves. We're less likely to share status, be generous to others. But that only lowers our status.

It’s an example of perspective taking— of acknowledging other people. We're social beings, says Galinsky. So the key to rising up is being generous, but our anxiety can sometimes prevent us from doing that. It turns out that acknowledging and thanking others, even your direct competitors, actually increases your status.

Breaking  Free from the Cycle

One of my personal mantras is "There's enough." I have to actively remind myself of this when I'm spiraling into anxious insecurity. Galinsky calls this "expanding the status pie" - the idea that status isn't zero-sum. When we elevate others, we can actually elevate ourselves too.

But let's be honest: this is harder than it sounds when you're in the grip of anxiety. As Galinsky puts it, "fear doesn't hear." When we're anxious, we need to hear positive messages multiple times for them to stick. We need to actively practice generosity when every instinct is telling us to hold tight and protect what we have. We need it to become a habit.

The Power of Mantras and Rituals

“I think anxiety is a really interesting emotion,” says Galinsky. “I published a paper called ‘Anxious and Ego-centric’… we basically ended up showing that when people are anxious, it narrows our attention. It reduces our perspective-taking and makes us also less visionary because it's harder to see the big picture when we get anxious.

“At the same time, anxiety is in some ways a constructive emotion because it's telling us that a task that we're about to do is really important. And it's telling us that we need to activate all of our abilities to handle the certain situation that we're going into. And sometimes when we can harness that anxiety, we can be more courageous. How we deal with that anxiety more or less effectively can… really determine whether we're more inspiring or infuriating as leaders.”

I asked him, if you have a tendency to be anxious, how do you pull back when it's time to take stock of the big picture?

Galinsky uses key phrases, or mantras, to get him into the right mindset when he’s feeling anxious. So do I! When overcoming his own anxiety about public speaking some years ago, he borrowed a phrase from the TV show Sports Night (which is a great show BTW) and used it as a personal mantra. Ted Lasso says "barbecue sauce" before big moments, and most athletes have their pre-game rituals.

Finding your own steadying phrase or ritual can be transformative. For me, it's reminding myself that "there's enough" and forcing myself to act with generosity even when I'm feeling scared. Because here's the truth: anxiety is telling us something important - that we care, that the stakes matter. The key is learning to harness it rather than let it drive us into self-protective behaviors that ultimately hurt us.

Building Social Capital Through Generosity

There's a practical benefit to this approach too. Galinsky's research shows that when we thank someone, they're more likely to help us again in the future. Not only that, but they're more likely to help others too - creating a genuine "pay it forward" effect. As his late colleague Kathy Phillips used to say, "I pour love into other people because I want love myself."

This really hits home for me right now. When I'm feeling anxious about my job search, my instinct is to curl up and protect myself. But what if instead, I focused on building connections, expressing genuine gratitude, and looking for ways to help others? What if we all approached our careers not as a zero-sum game, but as an opportunity to expand the pie for everyone?

So here's my challenge to all of us: The next time you're feeling insecure at work, try to catch yourself. Are you withdrawing? Focusing solely on your own achievements? See if you can shift to gratitude and generosity instead. Remember: there's always more pie.

Morra

P.S. Giving to others increases status and makes you feel good! Here’s a way to help victims of the L.A. wildfires https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation.html/

P.P.S.: Galinsky's new book, Inspire is brand new- check it out!