Becoming Less Intimidating
For the first decade or so the consistent feedback I received was “I’m intimidating”. I was valued for my intellect and drive, but only other A type, analytical thinkers enjoyed working with me. Luckily I had many great (and a great many) managers giving me feedback. I put a lot of effort into learning about personality types and tailoring different communication techniques, etc. That got me pretty far. During the next decade or so, the feedback changed to “I’m intense”. It was definitely an improvement, but “intense” is just a nicer way of saying “you are intimidating but you bring enough value to tolerate it”. The two things that made a difference: being vulnerable and developing empathy.
Having started my career in the Big 5, there was an overemphasis on “professionalism”, primarily because when you recruit talent right out of college the first few weeks on the job are peppered with unprofessional incidences. Because I was a wild rock climber, surfer, cowgirl, raver at heart, I embraced the “Be Professional” guidance as the Holy Grail to becoming Partner and getting the Rolex. I made it to Associate Partner by being the professional, buttoned-up, leave my personality at home, robot. I look back and feel sorry for the teams that I lead. We got the job done, but WOW was it a boring slog. My professional self and personal self were so dramatically different I remember running into co-workers outside of work and some of them couldn’t place me as a team member on their project. It wasn’t until I had the benefit of working with this VP of Product, Stephane Maes, who had a weekly 2-hour Friday afternoon meeting to review product roadmap status. It had all the trappings for an awful meeting – 2 hours on a Friday afternoon, for real? But, it was my favorite meeting. I looked forward to that meeting every week. That meeting literally changed the professional lives for all the teams I have led since then. He was wild. He was fun. He was smart. We were laughing and joking throughout what could have been a very long and dry review of how we were or were not making schedule. Stephane brought his personality to work and loved to have fun while building great product. He taught me that it is ok for me to bring more of myself and that humor softens intensity. Looking back, Stephane taught me what Brene Brown teaches in Daring Greatly.
However, being fun is not enough. Being a fun yet intense leader is like being Batman: The Ride at Six-Flags. The “becoming empathetic” is what really has made the biggest difference in my leadership. A few years back our leadership team took the CALIPER assessment. For Empathy, I scored 3 out of 100. I made it to the executive level without a shred of caring because of high scores in listening and accommodation. If you could express what you wanted, I wanted to help you, and things worked out. If I didn’t understand what you wanted, so sad too bad. How you might feel about it = zero importance to me. However, it is true, you can develop empathy. It starts with being self-empathetic. Once you are able to recognize, accept and be nice to yourself when you are feeling angry, sad, envy and any of the 7 things from that Brad Pitt movie – you magically anticipate and/or recognize what others are feeling. Another tool to help develop empathy is meditation. 5-10 minutes of quieting your mind daily is brain exercise for your mental self to give space for your emotional self. Being empathetic helps me understand what people need in order to move forward. We are more than just physical and mental beings and when a leader is able to address the needs of the whole person the game changes.
How do I challenge myself? I’m lucky as naturally I hate being bored and I have a lot of initiative. I’m either pursuing something new that is interesting to me or I’m working on something that needs to be worked on. I know that wherever I’m feeling discomfort, there is an opportunity for growth. It is like weight lifting, get to muscle failure and give yourself time to recuperate, then growth occurs. If you are naturally complacent then do something that is either novel or makes you slightly uncomfortable weekly. Just a “tasting bite” – because you might never know what you encounter that brings more joy to your life.
What feedback have you received consistently in your career and how have you challenged yourself to grow? Share in the comments below!
Photo by Emil Widlund on Unsplash