Self, Meet Self: How to Show Up at Work

Posted on September 15, 2019 by Gina DeRosa, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
– Aristotle

When we have clarity about what makes us tick – belief systems, values, unconscious biases, strengths, goals, quirks, etc. – we understand how everything we believe and think contributes to our perceptions and, subsequently, the choices we make and actions we take (or avoid).

This is Part 1 of “Show Up, Stand Out, Save the World, Repeat,” a four-part series on leadership.

You are a leader, no matter where you are or what people call you when you’re there. In each moment, you have a responsibility to Show Up, Stand Out, and Save the World.

Reframing and expanding on the definition of leadership is key for your ongoing professional development, no matter what career path you have your eyes set on. You may not yet have had the opportunity to lead a team, department, or company, but you have always had the responsibility of being a leader. Titles are simply words on paper; leadership is all about behaviors.

Before we dive into the content for how to show up at work, let’s review definitions of the three basic categories of leadership:

FORMAL leadership: When someone has been given a role with a title that indicates a higher position in a company’s hierarchy.

Example: Yolanda is Vice President of Sales at ABC Company and oversees multiple departments led by Directors, who have their own teams led by managers.

INFORMAL leadership: When someone takes on a role that requires them to provide direction to others. The role may or may not come with a title; either way, it requires the person to organize and influence people for a shared purpose.

Example: Matteo’s role at ABC Company is Call Center Representative, an entry-level position with no formal leadership responsibilities. However, he is the Co-Chair of ABC Company’s “Forward for Generations,” an employee-led business resource group that promotes cross-generational dialogue and activities for company employees.

AUTHENTIC leadership: What someone does every day whether interacting directly with other people or doing something that will eventually impact others.

Example: Matteo notices an error in one of his call center’s workflows, a small typo but one that he knows can lead to negative consequences for ABC Company’s customers. He chooses to tell his supervisor because he does not want to assume that other employees have picked up on this error and are not sharing the erroneous information with customers.

Now that we’ve established that you are a leader – an authentic one if not also a formal and/or informal one – here is a quick exercise to kickstart your process for gaining clarity about what makes you tick:

Take 20 seconds to write down a word or short phrase that defines you, without using your name.

Looking at what you came up with, what does it tell you about how do you perceive yourself? Does this word or phrase come up when you describe to others what you are passionate about and what your strengths are?

Next, let’s get into a higher gear with this. Assuming that you want to continue to learn and grow throughout your professional career, conduct a little more “mesearch” and dig deeper into what makes you tick. By investing the time and committing to humility during the process, you can take a personal inventory of the following attributes to get the wheels turning in your head about what areas of yourself that you need to place more focus on:

- Beliefs, including Unconscious Biases
- Goals
- Passions/Motivators
- Preferences
- Strengths/Skills
- Thoughts, and the Attitudes you display as a result of them
- Values

You can get specific or keep things high-level with themes. Either way, the more consideration you give to each of these areas, the more you will get – and create – for yourself as a result.

Lastly, here are a few tools that I reference with coaching clients when they need a bit more structure to guide their self-reflection – I’ll expand on these in future blog posts, but for now you can befriend Google and check things out for yourself:

- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: From “A Theory of Human Motivation” by Abraham Maslow, this framework depicts categories of motives that help us understand our basic needs and drives.

- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: CBT was developed from Cognitive Therapy, based on Dr. Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Theory, based on methods for us to regulate our interconnected thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

- Johari Window: A classic tool, created in 1955 by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham, that provides a framework for gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves with consideration to the perceptions that others have of us.

Now that you know you are a leader despite what positions you’ve held, it’s up to you to decide how you want to show up at work. Of course, we’re all a work in progress so no one is expecting perfection of you, but for others to see you as a positive leader, showing up means being mindful of your own beliefs, values, and thoughts, as well as the impact your actions and words have on those around you. This starts and ends with being your best self, listening to others, and acting with integrity, patience, and gratitude.

#showup #leadership #seeGseeYou