"I don’t care what the data says, it is wrong! This is the way it has always been and will continue to be in this company!" The senior executive was red in the face as he let his angry emotions dominate the team. His shutting down of creative thinking and any ideas other than his own made him "learning impaired".

It limited him as well as the ability of those around him to rapidly learn, grow and respond to changes in the marketplace. Bright as he was, the executive above became a casualty of his "addiction to being right". All of us have flirted with that particular addiction and many are still caught in its grip. It is perhaps the No. 1 learning disability in both corporate America and society. It spreads through insecurity, inflated egos, insensitivity and identifying with past successes.

How can we treat the hold of this addiction on our minds and hearts? How can we open the door for better understanding, creative problem-solving and seizing the moment? Consider starting with the courage to learn and grow. This means to develop the courage to see that our current reality changes every moment and to invite new considerations of how things can work. It means having the courage to be awkward again as we try new behaviors and step into a fresh perspective or way of looking at ourselves, others and the world.

To develop this courageous way of living and learning more gracefully and quickly, it is essential to understand the chief barrier. It is ultimately driven by fear. We are afraid of being wrong or not knowing, of looking foolish, being embarrassed or having to change a comfortable habit or behavior. It is the fear, at heart, of having to take a long , hard and deeper look at how we fully affect those around us and really "get it" at a gut level and act upon it.

A vivid example comes to mind. I was working with a Fortune 500 company on barriers to implementing the new strategic plan. When fear came up as the No. 1 barrier, the CEO raised his voice, nearly shouting, "Fear, there is no fear here! When was the last time we fired someone for speaking up!" He was more than a bit chagrined and humbled when his executives told him that being yelled or at or embarrassed in public was the very fear they were talking about.

The simplest way to put it is that there is no traction for meaningful learning and growth until your heart is engaged. You can read about karate and watch others practice it, but you don’t really "know" karate until you get on the mat and live it yourself. With regard to feedback about our growth edges, we have developed powerful defenses against the learning we get "on the mat".

As outlined in last week’s column on the "Courage to be confronted", we are strongly invested in seeing ourselves a certain way. Intellectually, we will admit to not being perfect and expressing that we have much to improve. Yet, in practice, when faced with the critical feedback that could lead to improvement, we argue with the data, justify ourselves, blame others, deny the implications or minimize its meaning. This defensiveness eliminates learning or makes it a slow and grudging process. In the meantime, opportunities are squandered and precious time is forever lost. Since most of the defenses occur around the EQ, or emotional quotient dimensions of leading and living, it means that we continue to repeat old behaviors, even when we know change is needed. There is, indeed, a huge gulf between knowing something and actually doing something.

How can you ensure that you are overcoming fear and continuing to learn and grow? The first key step is in the first act of courage, the courage to dream. Remember daily what your life is about, who you wish to be and what you desire to create.

Firmly plant in your mind that vision or dream for your life, your work and your relationships. This creates a "future pull" that helps you to build the courage to face your issues and fears and move towards a larger life purpose.

The second key step is focusing on the fact that "being right" is not the same thing as "winning". Many of us have confused the two. We act as if not being right means we must be wrong. This sets up a win-lose, zero sum game that is ultimately self-defeating. Once, early in my marriage, I proved my wife was "wrong". She even admitted she was wrong. Yet, later that night, as I lay sleeping on the couch, locked out of the bedroom, it dawned on me that I might have been technically right, but I had not "won" anything. In fact, my need to be right had caused me to lose.

There is, in fact, a vast gulf between being right and winning. Vital relationships and long-term successes are based on not just competency, but also respect, honesty, listening, caring and learning. The addictive need to be right damages all of the elements required to create success. In breaking the "being right" cycle, stay aware of how often you need to argue your viewpoint, even in the privacy of your own mind. How often do you simply judge, discount and dismiss a viewpoint, argument or person because it challenges what you want to believe or your sense of self-definition?

The third key is giving up the need to always be safe, to remain on what is known as familiar ground. The fear of looking awkward or even foolish is a powerful master. It’s like falling off the bicycle while learning to ride, and out of the fear of being embarrassed, putting down the kickstand and sitting there in full biking gear, looking cool or throwing the bike away as flawed and faulty.

Part of true leadership is knowing when to be led and to trust your team to work together and mentor each other – even you. It takes courage to step into new ways of relating and behaving, since it means stepping into new psychological and emotional territory. There is a helpful saying: "There is no lasting safety in playing it safe". Staying safe psychologically and emotionally means we ride a psychological and emotional merry-go-round, thus limiting our power, and our ability to lead, relate, learn and grow. We only find real safety by increasing our level of awareness, deepening our connection to a higher power and living more fully out of the vastness of who we are in spirit, versus the dictates of ego and personality or the way we have always done it.

The forth step is to cultivate a state of "principled flexibility". Developing both mental and emotional flexibility leads to an expressed capacity to learn, lead and live joyfully.

Take a note and notice how much of your thinking, feeling and relating has become automatic. How much real flexibility have you built into your life, your ways of working, relating and leading? How much real innovation have you invited into work and home? What non-fulfilling patterns continue to hold sway?

Reexamine any sacred cows, cherished assumptions or absolutes. Identify some new behaviors you could try, and shift out of the way you have of automatically interacting in meetings at work or in your life. Engage the mind-body connection by trying out some new and very different patterns of moving, speaking and relating. For example: take dance lessons if you don’t dance, or work on a new skill or sport requiring abilities you haven’t developed before.

Play with "what-if" thinking and try out radically new concepts and interpretations. The key here is to stay open, flexible and alive. Finally, cultivate a healthy sense of humility and curiosity. The realization that you can learn from anyone is a powerful antidote to righteousness and rigidity in your thinking and feeling. It accelerates the learning process when you stop judging and discounting.

Get busy connecting and making new connections, versus rehearsing what you already know and resting on the laurels of past successes. When you give up the need to be right, to judge and to blame, your power to win at multiple levels and ways grows to an incredible degree.

Are you ready to dedicate yourself to being the most powerful and best that you can be? Are you ready to go beyond yourself for the greater good of the organization, team, family or individual relationship? If so, it will take the courage to learn and grow, to step into the anxiety, provoking zone of uncertainty, doubt, awkwardness and new ways of being. Accessing the courage to learn and grow opens the door to greater life-success, to more graceful learning, and to more deeply satisfying relationships.

As Michael McGriff. MD, puts it, "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape". Are you willing to more deeply learn and grow?