It's hard balancing who I am versus who I am expected to be. The battle has become ever more pertinent the more senior I have become between balancing my extroverted personality against a historic way of acting within business.
I'm described by my peers as authoritative, a natural leader and I have an uncompromising and unapologetic high standard – couple this with a little bit (a lot) of sass and a curious yet intellectual mind and you end up with a recipe for disaster in most instances. I always urge those around me to scratch the surface on this, and you actually find a shy, introverted and caring human being.
For it is my idiosyncrasies that make me who I am, and just like you – I am completely bonkers. Leave me alone in an elevator or put me in front of a mirror and I am pulling funny faces or making strange noises. (I really hope this isn't just me...)
Perception is often reality and this is the first hurdle you will have to overcome.
You won't catch me opening up very often about some of my past experiences, as I often still cringe at my learning curve but on this occasion there is something to learn from my past.
Believe it or not, I was more arrogant that I am today, in all the wrong ways. It was a hollow arrogance that was founded purely on the success of profitable department I ran at the time. Needless to say the higher you climb the harder you fall. The majority of my team at the time only had great things to say about me, but everyone else looking in on this new digital 'search' department just saw high attrition which was only to become a standard in our industry, coupled with a sassy leader with a sharp tongue which hoarded off anyone who spoke negatively about the team.
A new HR director had just been sworn into the business and I was unexpectedly taken by the jugular within her first month. Interestingly I was sat down, and informed that whilst there was not yet a fire yet, she could see embers burning within the agency surrounding the department I was running.
A direct contrast had been made between my personality traits and the attrition of the department. It was perceived that the high attrition had something to do with the leadership of the team.
When I received this open and honest feedback I was knocked six ways from Sunday.
I was probably about 22 at the time and I had in retrospect been clearly promoted into a senior role based on my technical capability over that of my man management, expectation setting and board resilience skills – something which took me a very long time to come to terms with as I thought I could do everything of course even at that age. This however was a major turning point in my life. I had been so conceited in our financials that I had taken perception for granted. I felt like a failure, and it put all the work I had achieved into question. Needless to say, I had a week of no sleep as we sought to put out the embers. This was the first time I questioned who it was I had to become to succeed, and what compromises I needed to make in order to be successful professionally.
I luckily took it in my stride, and I worked tirelessly on my perception within the agency by looking outward rather than in. I ran a series of meetings, and hosted roadshows so that others could see the department was in good hands. Looking back at this time now, there was probably over a hundred interactions that were meaningful and hand crafted to change this opinion of me. I became a little paranoid. I will over this content series walk you through how to come to terms with yourself and embrace yourself. There is no room for compromise when it comes to your happiness.
To this day, I don't wear a suit but I am well-presented. I like to uncontrollably mutter faux pas' coupled with double entendres which can be a little risqué and I do not hide my personality for anyone, ever. I do however adapt for the company I am in – the tip below will give you an insight on just how I do this.
Tip Number One: Get to grips with who you are. Not tomorrow. Today.
It was shortly after meeting with the HR director that I joined a high potential framework designed to accelerate some of the top performers in the business to discover the skills they lacked. I had turned it around enough to be placed on this program. Phew. It was during this program I was introduced to Myers Briggs which became a first solid foundation to self-discovery. It enabled me to look at my personality from the other side of the table. I would strongly suggest you take this test online, there are some good free ones you can take right now to provide you with a foundation of personality traits.
Whilst Myers Briggs was great to begin with – it can become a little like reading a horoscope – as everything seems relevant when you read it. I am The Commander if you were interested to have a little read up.
The most exciting personality test I have taken in recent years has been The Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI). This unlocked using data, a whole set of personality traits I didn't even know I had.
The test looks into the concept of 'full brain thinking'. The human brain as demonstrated by this concept cannot talk diagonally – however it can talk across (up/down & sideways). That means usually the analytical people among us will struggle to typically communicate with the relational folk and this is completely natural as they are different quadrants of the brain that aren't hardwired to communicate. It's like getting two people who speak different languages and asking them to communicate, it will be hit and miss and often a miscommunication will occur.
The good news is, you can train your brain to become more 'full brain'. Once you sit the test you will see exactly what I mean.
The results of this test for me, went into detail to demonstrate that I am very analytical and methodical, however I wasn't so good at coping in emotional situations.
I saw this to be perfectly true, for example – I had a colleague come into my office a few years ago, bawling their eyes out about a personal matter. They left my office with a mini project plan on how to sort this personal problem out. What a joke! All they needed was for someone to listen, offer a shoulder to cry on and the afternoon off to cope with the issue. Why was I so blind to this? Why did I deal with the situation like this?
To this day I now know I am not the best person to ask advice from if you are emotional at the time. My HBDI goes to prove out that in stressful situations I turn away from emotional decisions all together. It has taken me years to begin working on my emotional responsiveness and looking at every situation with a full brain approach.
HBDI is also excellent for 'generalising' what kind of person you may be interacting with. For example, if you find yourself talking to someone and they use a lot of language such as 'I love / I feel / my gut says..." they may well be in the relational category. I will change my tone and language to meet the needs of their personality so that they are more comfortable talking to me, or it may well lead to a quicker desired outcome if I can adapt my communication style to suit their needs.
Let me demonstrate the extremes of different personality categories using the example of planning a picnic, note the language used:
The Analytical: The Picnic will be at 15:35. The bus timetable says we have to be at the bus stop for 15:12 to arrive on time. We have packed food groups that have less than 500 calories per serving multiplied by 8 people in attendance.
The Procedural: I have pulled together a project plan on how we will have a picnic, we can't do it this weekend as the weather isn't great and next weekend there is a contingency plan just in case certain people can't attend. I have prepared documentation packs on how everyone is getting to the venue.
The Relational-Creative: The idea of a picnic is so cool, we could even host it in another state or country? Maybe we could even invite other people's friends and design all the food courses around their favorite animal?
The Relational: I love the idea of a picnic, I hope everyone else feels excited too! I remember picnics when I was younger and everyone used to be happy. I feel like we should get all the food people love the most.
These are clearly exaggerated statements but they allow you to see the contrasting conversational tone. Can you spot some of your friends / colleagues in these personality tribes already?
If you don't like the idea of sitting a brief examination, just ask your peers for feedback. I would suggest you ask your HR department for a 360 review this allows anonymity and the results are often really fruitful.
Tip: Don't look into these results more than you need to – this is a moment in time, and often you can dwell on a vague insight. Take the aggregate sentiment and work on it.