Oh hey there,
I hope you’ve had a productive week. I wanted to share with you some of the really big insights that I gleaned this week when I was delivering one of my management training courses.
On Wednesday, I worked with a team to develop their EQ as managers. We really dug into self-awareness, first of all considering the strengths we bring to our management style. Strengths are the things that you bring to the party. They are the qualities that you most use at work and how you prioritise these in your working relationships.
The team set to work choosing their top three and then communicating them to the group.
Mine are sociable, supportive and quick to act. Three things that I was as happy to share with the team as they were excited to share theirs with me. Now, it’s clear with each of these, just how brilliant they can be in leadership - connecting with people, considering and caring for their needs as well as being able to act immediately when challenge arises.
However, I then asked the team to really lean into those strengths and consider what happens when they become overdone strengths. This is when we overdo a particular strength by using it too much or for too long. Although our intention in using this strength is positive and purposeful, overdoing it can mean we become misunderstood and cause conflict with others - or even more concerning - for ourselves!
So, my sociable becomes intrusive.
My supportive becomes self-sacrificing.
And, my quick to act becomes rash.
WOW.
Well, I think it was fair to say that this was a light bulb moment for a lot of the team (it certainly was for me the first time I saw it). I am normally so proud of those strengths but blow me, do I see how they can hold me up too!
I had a big chat with one of the team who had a realisation about how his supportiveness was tripping him up. He wanted to ensure that others in the team didn’t get over-worked… but that ended up being to his own detriment when its meant that it was his workloads that were doubled!
Or what about if being quick to act means you simply create more work for yourself time and again? Making assumptions or trying to fix and control rather than spending time clarifying what the challenge actually is and collaborating on the answer?
Awareness is everything.
Indeed, being aware of the potential for us to use our overdone strengths provides us with more choices when we need to dial down the volume or even use a different strength altogether. It also beautifully highlights where other gaps might need to be filled too - such as communication, feedback and better boundary setting.
So, if fancy upping your self-awareness regulation, take a look at our management development programmes.
Have a wonderful week!
With love always,
Cate x
Oh hey there,
I hope you’ve had a productive week. I wanted to share with you some of the really big insights that I gleaned this week when I was delivering one of my management training courses.
On Wednesday, I worked with a team to develop their EQ as managers. We really dug into self-awareness, first of all considering the strengths we bring to our management style. Strengths are the things that you bring to the party. They are the qualities that you most use at work and how you prioritise these in your working relationships.
The team set to work choosing their top three and then communicating them to the group.
Mine are sociable, supportive and quick to act. Three things that I was as happy to share with the team as they were excited to share theirs with me. Now, it’s clear with each of these, just how brilliant they can be in leadership - connecting with people, considering and caring for their needs as well as being able to act immediately when challenge arises.
However, I then asked the team to really lean into those strengths and consider what happens when they become overdone strengths. This is when we overdo a particular strength by using it too much or for too long. Although our intention in using this strength is positive and purposeful, overdoing it can mean we become misunderstood and cause conflict with others - or even more concerning - for ourselves!
So, my sociable becomes intrusive.
My supportive becomes self-sacrificing.
And, my quick to act becomes rash.
WOW.
Well, I think it was fair to say that this was a light bulb moment for a lot of the team (it certainly was for me the first time I saw it). I am normally so proud of those strengths but blow me, do I see how they can hold me up too!
I had a big chat with one of the team who had a realisation about how his supportiveness was tripping him up. He wanted to ensure that others in the team didn’t get over-worked… but that ended up being to his own detriment when its meant that it was his workloads that were doubled!
Or what about if being quick to act means you simply create more work for yourself time and again? Making assumptions or trying to fix and control rather than spending time clarifying what the challenge actually is and collaborating on the answer?
Awareness is everything.
Indeed, being aware of the potential for us to use our overdone strengths provides us with more choices when we need to dial down the volume or even use a different strength altogether. It also beautifully highlights where other gaps might need to be filled too - such as communication, feedback and better boundary setting.
So, if fancy upping your self-awareness regulation, take a look at our management development programmes.
Have a wonderful week!
With love always,
Cate x
