During World War II, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin called a meeting with several music composers who were tasked with writing a new national anthem. Stalin, crippled by insecurity, relied on intimidation to get his way. He green-lit millions of executions during his reign, which was no secret to the composers gathered in this meeting. One slip-up would land these guys in a labor camp, where they would be literally worked to death.
Upon hearing the new anthem, Stalin unleashed a fit of rage. He hated it. Like clockwork, he cornered the weakest person in the room—a novice composer—and hurled a slew of threats and insults. The young man stumbled over his words as his life flashed before his eyes. Stalin could smell the fear on the guy’s breath.
Just as the situation began to spiral out of control, another composer, Dmitry Shostakovich, diffused the situation. He casually mentioned that blaming the young, inexperienced composer for a lackluster job wouldn’t solve any problems. Shostakovich proceeded to ask Stalin what he thought the best process to compose the new anthem might be. Always eager to prove his expertise (despite his ignorance), Stalin took the bait, ultimately sparing the composers’ lives.
How, in the face of one of the deadliest dictators in the history of human civilization, did Shostakovich keep his cool? Most importantly, he understood that Stalin thrived off of fear. Trying to plead and rationalize with him would be as effective as smoothing water with a flatiron.
Instead, he used a mother-like approach, seeing Stalin for the chubby, insecure child that he was. He brought him down to the level of a flawed human being rather than accepting the macho persona that intimidated millions of others. In this moment, Stalin wasn’t a deadly dictator, but a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.
This ability to set emotions aside and see through outward appearances is as valuable in our own social encounters today as it was during Stalin’s reign. Take a powerful, overbearing boss for example—someone who seems impossible to please. Your gut reaction might be to place him on a pedestal to win his approval. That’s the trap he wants you to fall into. In order to get the upper hand, you’ll want to take a page out of Shostakovich’s book and shatter that pedestal. Demythologize him; he’s a child who never grew up; he’s desperate for attention and probably has more insecurities than you do. By empathizing and seeing him through a new lens, you’re less likely to play into the drama like the first musician did with Stalin.
“The key to staying unintimidated is to convince yourself that the person you’re facing is a mere mortal, no different from you—which is in fact the truth,” says Robert Greene, author of The Laws of Human Nature. “See the person, not the myth. Imagine him or her as a child, as someone riddled with insecurities. Cutting the other person down to size will help you to keep your mental balance.”
Your boss—or anyone who seems intimidating—probably has more money, more control, more freedom than you. But don’t let that distract you from the fact that they don’t have it all figured out. Nobody does. Once you see people as they truly are instead of some arbitrary character you’ve made up, things get a lot easier.
As the cultural critic Neil Postman wrote, “It is certainly true that he who has the power to define is our master, but it is also true that he who holds in mind an alternative definition can never quite be his slave.”
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