Understanding the roles you play

When I was in my twenties I used to work with a man who I really did not like, and I was not alone in disliking this guy. He was rude, difficult to work with and painful to be around. In my opinion, he was overly serious at work and critical. It was like he had divided his life into work and pleasure, and neither of the two areas were allowed to meet. Another woman who I worked with and considered a friend was friends with this guy outside of work. I never quite understood how she could socialise with this complete pain of a person, so I asked her about it. She said that, although he was painful at work, he was actually a really nice guy outside of work. This still didn't really explain his behaviour to me. I just don't buy into that kind of separation, and don't understand why or how someone would do that.

How unbelievably difficult it must be to be a different person at work from the one you are in your personal life. I understand that we may not be completely the same — I know the way I talk to my friends can be different from the way I talk with clients the first time I meet them. However, the difference isn't that marked.

Acting at work not too differently from how you act at home is the essence of being your real self. At Harvard, we explored the concept of the roles we play.

All of us have many roles that make up our whole selves. With each of those roles come different sets of people we have a relationship with. Each relationship brings expectations and loyalties, both from their perspective and yours.

I have the role of mother, because I have two people who expect me to play that role. I have expectations of them but I also have loyalties to deliver on the role I play.

I have the role of wife. I have the role of daughter. I have the role of sister. I have a husband, parents and siblings who all have varying expectations of me, and I have loyalties to them.

I have the role of friend and again have a variety of people who have varying degrees of expectations of me and loyalties to me, as I do of them. The closer the friend, the bigger and deeper the expectations and loyalties are.

I have the role of business owner, which includes the expectations of clients, and I have the role of employer, which again involves people who have expectations and loyalties.

In each of these roles, we behave and act slightly differently. The role I play as a friend is different from the role I play as a daughter. The role I play as a business owner is very different from the role I play as a mother.

Because we have a variety of roles with people who have certain expectations on us in fulfilling those roles, there is always, unfortunately, the opportunity to disappoint. And because we have loyalties to the people we interact with in each of those roles, we will often feel guilt when we do not deliver on those expectations.

Think of each of the roles you play as smaller circles on a bigger circle. Now imagine they are all connected with elastic bands. When you are centred, when you are delivering on all the expectations of the roles you play, everything feels good; the bands are firm but relaxed. As soon as you divert too much focus, energy and time onto one particular role, the end result is normally tension in all the other roles.

You may have experienced this with your friends when suddenly you met a new partner. You started devoting more time, energy and focus on your role as boyfriend or girlfriend, only to cause tension with your role as friend. Your friends may have started to feel a shift in your loyalties and may have been upset by this — even if they were fully understanding and supportive, they likely felt it none the less … and likely so did you.

You may have experienced this tension when you first got a new job and spent longer at the office trying to make that first good impression or come up to speed with everything. Or perhaps you experienced it during a busy time of the year when you needed to spend more time at work. This likely created tension with the other roles you play because you were less available as a partner or parent. Again, everyone may have been very understanding because they knew the shift was only temporary, but the readjustment of expectations needed to take place.

At the start of 2014 my role as business owner became a lot bigger. My workload was increasing, new clients were knocking on my door and, from a business owner's perspective, this was a great place to be. But I can't deny it put pressure on the other roles I played. I felt the tension in my roles as wife, as mother and as friend. While my husband and close friends were supportive, my two young daughters had greater expectations of me, and so I felt the greater tension.

Of course, tension will always exist between your roles, so you need to manage this. You will not always get the balance right but the more awareness you have of the roles you play, and the expectations and loyalties that go with each role, the better you will be prepared to manage the potential tensions when they arise.

All the roles you play and how you play them is what makes you, you. And as Dr Suess would say, no-one is more ‘You-er than You’.

ALL THE roles YOU PLAY AND HOW YOU PLAY THEM IS WHAT MAKES YOU, you.

Knowing your chimes

I first came across the concept of personal chimes at Harvard. I was intrigued by how much the concept related to a leader's authenticity, and how having a greater understanding of our chimes could help with us being more real. Think of your chimes as your ‘hot’ buttons — the things that get you fired up, angry, passionate or all three. Some common chimes are diversity, fairness, belonging, authority, inclusion, justice, structure, customer service and process.

Like most things in life, having chimes, especially ones that ring loud, involves pros and cons. Having greater self-awareness, however, can help you embrace your chimes.

Delaying your response when your personal chimes are ringing can be hard, but I am sure you have done it in the past. For example, you have probably been in a situation where you knew someone was deliberately trying to push your chimes. In that situation it was likely easy to respond with ‘I know you are doing that deliberately and I am not going to bite’. Or, at least, it might have been possible to think about biting first before you did.

It is important to build this self-awareness because others will probably already know your chimes. They will know your hot buttons and can easily press them for their desired outcome — and their desired outcome may be good for you, or not. A good friend who knows your chimes, for example, may deliberately push them to motivate you to action. A competitive colleague, however, may also know your chimes and deliberately push them to derail you or discredit you.

Throughout my career one of my chimes has been gender diversity. I have always been passionate about this topic — to the point of writing my thesis on the subject in 2002. Early in my career I would pounce on any comment that I deemed to be sexist. This reactive response normally resulted in people not comprehending my message because they were preoccupied with my animated delivery. With maturity I realised the reactive response was not helping my credibility or the gender diversity cause. I still have the chime today and it is still as strong as ever but my response has changed. I still respond but instead of it being reactive it is considered. I find that this response not only helps with getting my message across but also helps with my credibility.

A client of mine, Rebecca, found herself in a leadership team meeting where the issue of increasing the quota of females in senior positions was on the agenda, among other items. Rebecca was the only female on that leadership team, a situation she found herself in often because she worked in the technology sector. When this action item was reached, her manager suggested that they not discuss it as a member of their HR department was not in the room. Rebecca's diversity chimes started ringing — firstly because it seemed this issue was not going to be discussed but secondly because the reason for not discussing it was confirmation from the men around the table that this was not their issue, or a leadership issue, but a HR issue. Rebecca didn't respond instantly, for fear of once again being perceived as the female flying the diversity flag. Instead, she gave herself a few seconds before responding, which was enough time for her response to be considered — even though she agreed there was probably still a lot of emotion in it. Rebecca advised that she was disappointed this topic was dismissed so easily and suggested that HR was not required to address the issue. She emphasised that the leadership team as a group could be doing many things to address the issue.

In the end, time ran out and, because it was late on Friday afternoon, the issue was barely discussed during the meeting. On Monday morning Rebecca asked to see her manager and very calmly suggested that she would be willing to help him with the diversity challenge he and the rest of the team faced. What Rebecca didn't realise was that her response on Friday afternoon had made an impact on her manager — so much that he discussed it with his wife over the weekend. His wife also worked in the corporate world, and she relayed her own stories of the unconscious bias she had faced in her career. She also agreed with Rebecca's suggestion that this was not a HR issue but a leadership issue, and one that he should be addressing.

Within a week, Rebecca's manager had asked her to apply for a role he had not spoken to her about previously — because, previously, he hadn't thought her suitable. It was a significantly more senior role, managing more people and with a bigger budget, and with an attractive salary to match. Rebecca was indeed successful in being offered this role over all the other external and internal candidates. She continues to work with her manager to address the ongoing diversity issues. For Rebecca, being real and true to herself ended up paying off enormously.

Knowing what your chimes are and how to bring them into your role as leader can have a great impact. Reacting when your chimes are ringing always involves an element of risk but, done properly, it can help you become a more authentic leader.

Another example, and one of the more famous incidents of responding to a chime and being more real, comes from Australian politics. In 2010, Julia Gillard became Australia's first female prime minister. From the very early days, there was constant commentary and debate on whether she was being judged harder because she was female. Her clothes, her hairstyle, her choice of partner and her decision not to have children seemed to attract a disproportionate amount of media coverage, especially in comparison to the previous 26 Australian prime ministers.

KNOWING WHAT YOUR CHIMES ARE AND HOW TO BRING THEM INTO YOUR ROLE AS LEADER CAN HAVE A GREAT IMPACT ... DONE PROPERLY, IT CAN HELP YOU BECOME A MORE authentic LEADER.

Debate still rages in Australia about whether she was treated differently by the electorate because she was a woman, and I don't plan to settle that argument here.¹ For almost two years, however, Gillard deliberately tried to deflect any perceived sexism because she didn't want to play the gender card. But in October 2012 her gender diversity chime was possibly hit once too often and she delivered a fierce and emotionally charged speech directed at the then opposition leader, Tony Abbott. For 15 minutes she accused him of misogyny and sexist behaviour and this speech has now become known as the ‘misogyny’ speech.

The speech gained a lot of support in Australia and worldwide, as well as some criticism. Some local journalists deemed her speech ‘desperate’, ‘a terrible error’ and ‘completely over the top’. The New Yorker, on the other hand, suggested that President Barack Obama fans might be wishing Obama could take some lessons from Gillard. In the UK, The Spectator reported there was ‘much to admire’ about Gillard.

Regardless of your political view, the nature of the speech had an impact. It was real. I know many who believe it was staged and pre-planned but to me it felt like the real deal. In Gillard's autobiography, My Story, she wrote:

I was fired up. I do not normally think in swear words but my mind was shouting, For fuck's sake, after all the shit I have put up with, now I have to listen to Abbott lecturing me on sexism.

The speech gained worldwide media attention and went viral on social media sites. Days after the video was posted online, it had received over 1.5 million views. To put that number of views into perspective, the next most popular video of an Australian Parliament speech had attracted 14 000 views, and was when Gillard shed tears for Queensland flood victims in 2011. At the time of writing, the number of YouTube views of the video was sitting at more than 2.6 million.²

Anne Summers, a prominent Australian journalist, wrote an opinion piece that summarised why Gillard's speech had such an impact. According to Summers,

Here, finally, was a powerful woman speaking out against the sexism and misogyny that so many of us have to deal with. It was something that Julia Gillard has rarely done since she became Prime Minister and certainly not in such personal and impassioned terms. That was what got the response. That was why the speech was so exhilarating — and that was why it has attracted such a huge and impassioned response, here and around the world.

So, regardless of whether you think Gillard's speech was good or bad for her leadership, it had an impact. And it particularly had an impact on those people who felt it came from a place of personal passion and authenticity.

Once you know your chimes, it is easier to take a stand. In Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson's book Rework, they talk about the importance of drawing a line in the sand. They suggest:

As you get going, keep in mind why you're doing what you're doing. Great businesses have a point of view, not just a product and service. You have to believe in something. You need to have a backbone. You need to know what you're willing to fight for. And then you need to show the world.

This is as true for individual leaders as it is for businesses. As a leader, you need to have a point of view; you need to believe in something. You need to be strong and have a backbone and you need to be willing to fight for what you believe in. Not everyone will agree with your point of view. Some people will love it; others will hate it. But you have to be prepared to be strong, just like the Canadian lighthouse. Let other people make their own call but be strong and clear with yours.

Fried and Hansson suggest that ‘If no one's upset by what you're saying, you're probably not pushing hard enough. And you're probably boring too.’ So be prepared to be real, and to show the real you. Reality may bite but it may also ignite.

Looking at the three ‘Yous’

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken

— Oscar Wilde, Irish writer and poet

I want to share with you an experience I had during a workshop that had a profound effect on me. As part of the workshop we were split into smaller teaching groups of twelve. Two students at a time were encouraged to practise a pedagogy (a very cool, academic way of saying ‘mode of teaching’) that we did not normally use and that would stretch us. Each session went for 20 minutes with a debrief at the end.

One of my fellow students, Helen, wanted to practise the pedagogy of storytelling and started the session with a very personal story of when she was humiliated at school. She told of the lasting impact that this experience had had on her adult life and career choices.

Upon hearing Helen's story, another colleague was so moved that he shared his own story of being humiliated and bullied when he was six, and reiterated that this had also had a large impact on his life. His story was moving and heartfelt and you could see the physical and emotional reaction from the rest of the group. I, with many others in the room, was brought to tears. Everyone was emotionally moved, except one person.

During the debrief following the session, this person said that he did not find his story authentic. Further debriefing uncovered that while he believed the story to be true he did not believe the other person's reason for sharing it. He believed that the other person was using the story so the group would feel sorry for him and accept him. He, therefore, found the story inauthentic because he was challenging the motives behind telling it.

In analysing his reaction it is important to understand what had happened just before the sharing of stories. Just before that session, he had presented along with the man who shared his very personal emotional story. Their presentation was heavily criticised by the group, especially the role this person had played. He was understandably feeling a bit disappointed and maybe even at that stage isolated and annoyed with the group. The very nature of the workshop involved much self-reflection and analysis, and the feedback was often very confronting. He most likely felt he had an ally in his presenting partner. So when he heard him tell his story and saw the group respond so positively to that, he could have felt betrayed by him and suddenly even more isolated from the rest of the group. Hence he challenged his motives. This was analysed again the next day and a whole conversation emerged around authenticity as a leader.

Maybe he was reacting to other things as well. Maybe he's now embarrassed by his response and would act differently today. Who knows? I can't really tell his side of the story in these events. What I can describe is the realisation I came to from his reaction.

Days after, I continued to reflect on this experience because it really concerned me. How could someone so genuinely authentic and real still be perceived in a different way? And, if that was the case, what was the point? Is my whole message of being ‘real’ a complete waste of time?

After many discussions over coffee (and some over a wine or three), I decided that maybe the ‘real’ you was a combination of three ‘yous’:

• Inner you — what you believe and what you value. This involves all the True North aspects and chimes discussed in this chapter.
• Outer you — the actions and decisions you make. This is the part of you that people can observe. What they see, what they hear and what they feel and experience from you.
• Perceived you — how others see you. You could have complete and total alignment between your inner you and outer you but you are still at the mercy of how others perceive you.

The inner you and outer you is what you have greatest control over but the perceived you is where you can lose that control. So what is the point? What is the point of having your inner you aligned with your outer you if you have no control over how you are perceived? Well, even though I can give you no guarantee, I believe the more aligned with your inner and outer you are, the greater will be your chances that the perceived you will also be aligned. This won't be the case all the time, with all people, but you do have a greater chance that the perceived you will be the real you.

Finding your unique self

When my daughters were younger I enrolled them both in karate classes. I strongly believed that having my daughters learn a martial art would be good for them, and that this was a good skill to have. The physical and mental toughness cultivated from martial arts training would be beneficial, as would be the ability to protect themselves. So I enrolled my girls in karate and they both seemed to really enjoy it. Having learnt karate myself for a couple of years, we were able to practise together.

After a year, my eldest daughter, Alex, asked if she could swap karate for ballet. I was a bit reluctant to just allow her to swap so I suggested she stick with karate for a while and promised we would look into ballet later. Perhaps a bit of selfishness was present here in that I saw more value in karate than ballet. Maybe a lot of selfishness here but we persisted for another term, all the time Alex talking more about ballet and looking extremely uninterested in karate. I remember one karate training session vividly. The class was going through all their punches, blocks and kicks, but Alex's kicks did not resemble what anyone else was doing. They were graceful and pretty, strong but in a different way to the powerful karate kicks. After the class I asked her, ‘What was going on with your kicks? What type of kicks do you call those?’ She replied with, ‘They're ballet kicks’. It was then I realised I was fighting a losing battle. I was wasting her time and my money on karate. The next week we enrolled in ballet and jazz. Alex now does ballet three times a week and practises and stretches every day without me ever having to ask her.

Alex is now working towards her strengths and her passion. The energy she shows for dance is 100 times greater than what she ever showed for karate — and that includes when she first started karate and was relatively excited and happy to be doing it.

During my career I've experienced my fair share of performance appraisals that identified my weaknesses and how I could improve them. I remember very early on in my career, in my very first job, my manager advised me during one performance appraisal session that I was not getting paid to be the office clown. While I assured him I was not charging extra for my humour, I did take this advice onboard and made every attempt to ‘be more serious’. Of course, this was going against my real self. I can't tell you how many hilarious comments I thought of but did not share. When I was overlooked for a supervisor role for someone older and more serious, yet less experienced, I knew it was time to move on. Working on my perceived weakness was going against my real self and so it would be better for me to work in an organisation that perceived weaknesses as strengths — and appreciated my humour. I now wonder how many people were forced to perfect their karate kicks when all they wanted to do was dance.

I was reminded of this experience when I first came across the concept of ‘Your Unique Self’ from Matt Church at Thought Leaders Global, and an activity he recommends.

When I first did this activity I found it so liberating. It gave me the confidence and the permission to be my absolute real self. It showed me how I could make any potential weaknesses in my character, style or leadership work for me — and I say ‘potential weakness’ because I believe all our strengths and weaknesses are on a spectrum. Depending on the situation, they can become either a bigger weakness or bigger strength.

So let me share the process you go through to identify your unique self — and I hope you find it as liberating as I did.

The first thing you need to do is grab a piece of paper and divide it into three columns. At the top of the first column put STATED NEGATIVE. At the top of the middle column put SPUN RESULT. At the top of the last column put POSITIVE OPPOSITE.

Starting in the first column, write down your worst possible traits. These are things your partner or best friend (maybe they are now your ex-partner or ex-best friend) have said to you in the heat of the moment, normally proceeded with something like, ‘The problem with you is that you are so damn … ’.

When you write these down, they have to hurt. Don't put down anything that you are secretly proud of. For example, when I first did this activity, I started with a stated negative of ‘smart-arse’. I get called that a lot but I know I actually wear the label as a badge of honour and a certain amount of pride, so I changed it to ‘arrogant smart-arse’.

This is the time to dig deep and be really honest with yourself — you will get nothing out of this activity if you aren't.

So, here are some of my stated negatives:

• hard to please
• arrogant smart-arse
• opinionated
• dismissive (always interrupts)
• judgemental
• impatient.

Now that hurts. I sound like a real bitch.

Once you have five to six stated negatives, move to the last column. This is where the absolute opposites of your stated negatives go. For me, the positive opposites of my stated negatives are shown in the following table.

The positive opposite is what you have probably been given feedback on during such activities as 360 Degree Feedback and performance appraisals. For example, ‘You need to be more patient and humble’.

Once you have stated the positive opposite, use a big red pen to put a cross through the whole lot because you are never going be that person … ever! And the good news is, you don't have to be that person.

You will, of course, no doubt demonstrate those behaviours at times and in certain situations but they do not represent your default position. I know at times I can be very patient (I am a mother, after all) and accepting, and a good listener. But I also know that when I am like this, I am working at it.

To complete the activity, fill out the middle column. This is the spun result of the stated negative. This is where you can pretend you are a spin-doctor for a political candidate. How could you ‘spin’ your stated negative? For example:

• my ‘hard to please’ became ‘I want people to achieve their full potential’
• arrogant smart-arse became ‘witty’
• opinionated became ‘strong in my convictions’
• dismissive and always interrupts became ‘forward thinker’
• judgemental became ‘discerning’
• impatient became ‘action orientated’.

The middle column provides some great insights into what could become your signature style or your best self.

If I were described as ‘an arrogant smart-arse who is opinionated, dismissive, judgemental, impatient and hard to please’, I would be horrified. Yes, I have all those traits but they are me at my absolute worst.

If I were described as ‘a humble, considerate, good listener who is accepting, patient and easy to please’, I would ask whether they had the right person! I would, however, love to be described as a discerning, action-orientated, witty, forward-thinking person who is focused on helping people reach their full potential.

This activity doesn't give you the green light to completely ignore weaknesses you could work on. For example, interrupting people is an annoying trait and in my line of work as a mentor I know that interrupting does not serve me well and does not allow me to provide the best possible advice and guidance I can, both professionally and personally. So, I have worked on this and have tried to suspend judgement and become an active listener.

WHEN YOU ARE OPERATING WITHIN YOUR BEST SELF, YOU ARE THE REAL you.

However, I encourage you to do this activity to see if the process provides any insights into your unique self — because when you are operating within your unique self, you are the real you. Operating as your unique self may not be perfect but doing so will allow you to be your own true self. When people move closer to operating as themselves and as their unique self, they start to be more real. All you need now is the confidence and courage to step into your real self … warts and all.

When I look at myself, warts and all, I take comfort in a quote attributed to Marilyn Monroe (although some debate exists about whether she said it): ‘I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.’

Notes