Coffee Break

S3E9: Being Yourself At Work: Pros, Cons, and Patent Leather Pants

• Dianne Whitford, Carter Newton • Season 3 • Episode 9

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Today I'm joined by my friend Carter and we're continuing in the same vein of militant authenticity talked about in Season 3 Episode 6. Listen in as we discuss being an authentic jerk, how you may be defining yourself, and how - perhaps - patent leather pants aren't quite the thing for work. 

Being true to who you are is important. It can get in your way sometimes, too. How do you find the balance? How can you think about who you are in a way that still lets you be flexible, adaptable, and open to growth? Join us for a discussion!

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Dianne:

Hey everybody. It's Dianne Whitford with Coffee, Grit, and Inspiration. This is your Coffee Break Podcast. Not always weekly, but you know, we try. We try. I have a partner in crime with me today. I have Carter from Tennessee. Hey Carter.

Carter:

Glad to be here.

Dianne:

I'm glad you're here too. I'm glad to be here too. We're a little bit off this morning. That's okay though. I think that happens. We are recording this on Mother's Day and so I wanted to give a big shout out to all the moms. The mom figures, the moms that aren't here with us, pet moms, moms-to-be, grand moms, step moms, all moms, dads that are moms, dad-moms. What do they call those? Mr Mister moms. All moms, happy Mother's Day. Being a mom is hard. I think being a mom with little kids that are not in school that you're homeschooling is also really hard right now. There's just a lot of things that are tough, that are tough about being a mom. So shout out to all you guys. Hang in there at some point this is going to get better. It will get better. So a few, a few weeks ago I did a podcast on militant authenticity. And this is the, this is the idea that being yourself and, and just cleaving to who you are and that allegiance to who you are can sometimes get in your way. And at the time I also said that I really do strongly believe that being yourself at work is important and it's still something that I strongly believe in. And so today Carter and I wanted to talk a little bit about authenticity, being yourself at work, some of the benefits, some of the drawbacks and, and maybe a little bit about how to tell if you've kind of gone too far and if you're at that point where your authenticity is kind of getting in your, in your way. So a couple of things that we wanted to bring up, we'll just kind of walk through those as we, as we go and just whatever comes up is whatever's going to come up. So the first thing that I wanted to talk a little bit about, and this is kind of, to me, what authenticity really means and that is that your thoughts have to match your words, have to match your actions. And, and that has nothing to do with whether you want to have pink hair or you want to wear clothes that maybe are inappropriate or whatever. That's really about who you are and having the integrity of matching what you think with what you say with what you do. And those, those things you can do that, you can be that, without being so allegiant to who you are, that you get kind of mired down in that.

Carter:

Yeah, I think the, I think the piece where it all has to match is just so critical. It, it's, if you're not living the life you're saying, if you're not doing the things you're thinking, if your words are, are unmoored from, from what you say you are, it's broken, right? It's, it's, it's lost. And at the same time, you know, your actions can really overwhelm where you think you're going and what you think your words are. And, and both of those things externally can really shape what's going on in your own head. It's a, it's a, it's sort of a, a continuous cycle. You have to nurture it. It's a garden.

Dianne:

Yeah. Yeah. And people can tell when you are not being true to what you think. When you're saying something that you don't really believe or when you're... you say something and then you do something different. Like that, in my opinion, in my opinion, there is nothing more guaranteed to destroy your credibility or destroy the trust that other people have in you than when you're saying things you don't believe you're doing things differently than what you say, you're not saying what you do or, or saying what you mean. And those, those are credibility destroyers. It doesn't matter how great your work product is. It doesn't matter how awesome you think you are. When those things are happening, people aren't going to trust you. And you got to nurture that. You have to take care of that.

Carter:

Yeah. It's to the extent, and I don't know if you've ever noticed this Dianne, but if, if I am given a script that I have to say, and I don't believe it, it is so transparently obvious. I have, I have no poker face, I have no poker face at all and I literally get to a place where my voice quality changes. Where people who know me are like, no, he does not believe that at all. That is not Carter.

Dianne:

Yeah! How are you going to inspire people? How are you going to be an inspirational leader when you can't...you don't even believe the narrative that you're saying. You got to figure out a way to do it or to say it in a way that you do believe it.

Carter:

Exactly. I am notoriously bad at it and to the point that sometimes it's"here's the message I have been tasked to deliver to you".

Dianne:

Sometimes. Sometimes. That's a hard thing too for me as a leader. Like there are times where I argue with our leadership and you know, I just,"I don't think we should do it this way. I don't think that's how it should be" or whatever. And I'm shot down because there are reasons, there are reasons why they need me to do X, Y, or Z. I don't have to agree with those reasons, but I do have to deliver that message. And it is hard to do that in a way where people don't get that sense that I don't believe in what I'm saying. And so I have, I have to do a lot of thinking within myself to understand why am I resistant to this idea? Why does this give me such hard time? What is something good I can find in this situation that I can talk about where people will believe what I'm saying? Because I believe what I'm saying. And that that can be tough. That leads into one of those other things with authenticity where you are so allegiant to who you are, that you fail to recognize the need for change, right? You fail to recognize that"I'm headed down a path where I'm doing things that are destructive to my career, to my relationships with others. You know, to my wife, my husband, my kids, whatever that, I'm doing this thing". And if I'm so wrapped up in that's who I am and that's, you know, what I believe, that I don't recognize that need for change. So you have to figure out how to be authentic but also flexible and adaptable and recognize when there's parts of you that need to change.

Carter:

It's so important to recognize when you're being an authentic jerk.

Dianne:

Yes! Like Dr. Cox on Scrubs, I used him in my other example. He is an authentic jerk like he is. That's who I am and dah, dah. And forget about the fact that he drives everybody away. Like he's got those little nuggets of goodness that people see from time to time. And there's no question that he lives up to what he believes. And his thoughts, match his actions, match his words, but he is an authentic jerk. You're exactly right.

Carter:

Authenticity doesn't mean don't look in the mirror. Authenticity does mean look in the mirror and be realistic about what you've seen.

Dianne:

And maybe what we need to think about authenticity is I am who I am, and who I am can change, and should change, as I grow. You know, I mean that's really what it is, is people think I am who I am and that's all I am and that's all I'm ever going to be and I'm going to be true to myself for the rest of my life until I die. And that excludes any possibility of growing and learning as a person. Who I am now is not who I was five years ago. And it's not who I'm going to be in five more years. Just because we grow and evolve because we're humans doesn't mean we're not being authentic.

Carter:

Totally. It's like all your favorite punk rock bands, their first album is so raw and so real. And then by the third album, when they've actually learned to play guitar, well they"sold out". They're still who they are. They just accidentally grew. That's life. That's good, right?

Dianne:

Yeah! And they get better. And they got better. And maybe sometimes they change their sound and maybe sometimes that's for a good reason. And maybe sometimes it's not. But I don't think it's in human nature to be static. And when we are so allegiant to who we are, that's the risk. Is you get stagnant and you get static and stale.

Carter:

Well it's allegiant to who we are in a moment.

Dianne:

Today. Who we are today.

Carter:

Yeah. What do you do when that moment has passed. And now do you hang on to that, that moment regardless of what's going on around you? And how does that help you or the people around you?

Dianne:

It,. Maybe where that comes from is that desire not to lose yourself. Like you know, like, I think people trying to be self-aware, trying to be"know thyself" and know who you are. And and they are afraid of,"if I dig down into myself and who I am and if I'm constantly changing then does that, does that mean I have no identity? I have no personality?" People are always trying to find their identity, their true self and that true self is always evolving and it's hard to get a grasp on it when it's always evolving and it's always changing. And people, I think they also feel like maybe if I change too much as a result of this or that or whatever, I'm a pushover, I'm, I don't have a good sense of self, you know? And I don't think that's, I don't think that's true because I don't think your values changed significantly. It might just be the way you think about things, the way you approach things. You might kind of soften your edges a little bit, but that doesn't change your value system or who you are, or your childhood or all the things that made you who you are. Does that make sense what I'm saying?

Carter:

Yeah, I think it does. The most transcendent moment I ever had was when I went skydiving. That moment I fell out of an airplane and I really sort of knew who I was in that moment of peace. I'm a guy falling out of a plane. At this moment. Right at this moment. But like that conceptualization of myself as a dude falling out of an airplane- thankfully with somebody strapped to me, going to make sure I don't end up making a crater. Right? But like that, that experience of myself is valid. It's also limited, right? Like every day, thank God, I don't go fall out of a n airplane. One was good. But still, that that moment was real. The person I was, that image I had of myself, totally valid, absolutely real, situationally limited.

Dianne:

Mhm. And it's not always who you are. It's not always who you are.

Carter:

Let me assure you. Most of the time, I do not...

Dianne:

I don't know though, there may be days where we all feel like we're just falling out of an airplane.

Carter:

Totally.

Dianne:

More days than not lately.

Carter:

What's through this door? Oh.

Dianne:

It's a fall out of an airplane door. lions. I guess that militant authenticity is an excuse to stay in the comfort zone, in your comfort zone. And I really, I love your example of falling out of a plane because there's going to be people out there who are like, I can't take that risk. I don't, I'm not going to ever, that's, I'm just not that kind of person that would jump out of an airplane or that would take that kind of a risk or do this or whatever. That's just not who I am. You know, and that allegiance to who they are is preventing them from trying something new or getting out of that comfort zone to, to grow and learn as people. And it's, I think in those cases it's fear of who you might become that is holding you back from that kind of stuff.

Carter:

There's two ways of feeling fear. One is the fear that keeps you safe and what is the fear that keeps you limited. And that I feel like is an excellent example of the fear that keeps you limited.

Dianne:

So true. So true. Like they say, you know, try, take something you're scared of doing and just go do it like public speaking and things like that. And when you grabbed the bull by the horns and you take that step and do something that you are normally would be scared to do, you're going to change. You're going to grow and who you are afterwards is not going to be who you were before. And that's just the nature of learning and growing. And I think, I think maybe part of it is how people define, do you define yourself by what you do or, or how you feel in a moment? Or do you define yourself by your values and the pillars of your, of your being? You know, and maybe that's the struggle that people have. That's a great point. Becoming less afraid of public speaking by doing it. Doing something that frightens you and learning a new skill doesn't invalidate the person you were before that person's still in you. I think people define themselves by their fears a lot of times. I'm not the kind of person who does that and I'm not the kind of person that's because you're scared, you're scared of doing that thing, and you're letting your fears define who you are instead of instead of letting your other attributes, like your desire to learn new skills or your desire to expand your horizons. Maybe that's who you are and not your fear of public speaking or your fear of Heights or your fear of whatever. Right. I mean, are you defined by what you fear or what your dream, yeah, I love that. Carter, I love that. Are you defined by what you fear or what you dream? That is awesome and that's a choice. That's a choice of how you decide to look at it. Am I going to look at this like, Oh that's a very scary thing or is that an opportunity to grow? And it gets into like the growth mindset and like not being afraid to fail because when you try new things you're going to fail. That's just the way that is. And do you want to define yourself as somebody who's too afraid of failure to try new things? Or do you want to try define yourself as somebody who's going to grab that bull and go do it? Because learning something is really important to you. Failure is not the enemy of authenticity, right? I mean failure is just, it's just a skills check, reload the last good save and try again as a gamer. I love that analogy. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. So another thing that I think about a lot when thinking about authenticity, because authenticity in some ways is really showing who you are and showing who you are creates a vulnerability and being vulnerable around the people that you work with or anybody, but maybe especially the people that you work with can be super troubling or limiting to people because you don't, maybe you don't know the people that you work with very well. Maybe you're concerned about their opinion of you, how that could impact your career. And so there's a couple of things that come out of that. One as leaders or even as people in an organization, I think we have a responsibility to create an atmosphere of psychological safety. You know, where people can be themselves without fearing being humiliated or fearing, fearing, being punished, you know, and I think that there's a difference between, you know, I made a choice and there's a consequence and I'm being punished for something, you know, or I'm being punished for something I said or something I think or something that I see as being who I am, part of who I am. And there are cultures out there, there's corporate cultures, there's, there's national cultures that have that kind of thing. And I think that people don't grow in those environments and they're not happy, productive and they can't be truly authentic. I think in those kinds of environments.

Carter:

When I first started working for general electric and about 2002 I was one of the first groups hired after the end of the suit and tie rule. So as recently as six months before I started, everybody had to abide by the dress code that included suit and tie every single day. And between that point when they let go and instituted business casual for whatever definition they gave, and when I started there were a whole lot of people who suddenly had dozens and dozens of business suits that they didn't have a use for. And nobody knew what business casual meant. There were so many people trying to experiment to figure out what is, what is appropriate. So you know, the only thing I will say is question your decision to wear patent leather pants to the office that like that is that is authentically you. You are definitely wearing those patent leather pants. Good on you. But the question to ask is maybe are these the best choice? Is there a message in my patent leather pants? What message is that? It was, it was such an interesting time where people were figuring out who am I if I'm not wearing a suit and how do I be me and be what I'm trying to be while we all figure out what it means to not wear a suit together.

Dianne:

Yes. Yes. And something I thought of while you were talking about that is it's, I feel like a lot of that, and I've seen this in myself, especially when I was younger, that we align our sense of self with how we look. Right? Those patent leather pants I feel are an expression of my true self, my true self that wears patent leather pants, more power to me, you know, fight the power or whatever. And what I started to realize as I got older was how I look. So whether I have been carried or I don't have pink hair or in my case when I was younger I made the fill advice choice to dye my hair platinum blonde and over a red, which resulted in, as you can probably imagine creamsicle hair for a number of months. I had light orange and white hair for a long time and I thought that was awesome because I was that kind of person that wears that kind of hair and it was very difficult for me to disengage what I look like with who I am and as I got older I still have my tattoos. I still like to do stuff with my hair, but I also recognize that the job that I enjoy, the job that I like, I have to have a certain level of credibility with the people that I work with and people a hard time taking you seriously in the job that I have. When when you have your piercings hanging out all over the place. When I have my tattoos showing all over the place when I've got creamsicle Popsicle hair, people have a hard time taking you seriously. If, if having creamsicle Popsicle hair is the thing that defines me and that is who I am, then I need a different job. And that's totally my own personal choice. I am still who I am and that's, that's where I had to get to was to disengage that how I look with who I am, I'm still the person that I've always been, not that I've always been, I'm still the person that I've evolved into that continues to evolve regardless of whether or not I have crazy hair.

Carter:

Yeah. I have the, and it's totally privileged of being able to camouflage as a normal member of society. All I gotta do is put it on button down shirt and I pass for one of the normies. Right. And it's kind of a useful skill to be able to just blend into the background, but that way. But I also know that at some point who I am is going to pop out regardless of the clothing, who I am is going to come through. And that's where I think that's where I think

Dianne:

it's important to have that space to be able to do that. Right. Like, I can tell you and even the people at work, cause I feel like we have a pretty strong culture of psychological safety at work, you know? And so I feel comfortable telling people, you know, I yeah I play video games, I I enjoy this. I cry at cartoons or Disney movies or commercials or you know, that's just the kind of person that I am sentimental and I value things like love and family and those are important to me and that makes up part of who I am and I feel comfortable showing that at work. I think part of, you know, in something we were talking about as we were preparing is who you choose to show that to, right? Cause there's certain people at work that you're going to feel closer with that are not gonna. You're not going to have a loss of credibility with them if you share kind of your emotions and your feelings. Whereas there's others where it's probably not appropriate to do that. And that just has, is a function of your relative position in the company. How will you know that person? How closely they work with you, how well they already know you. You know, if you have a lot of credibility built up with somebody making mistake, taking a risk, something like that is not going to have as big an impact as somebody that you haven't met yet or somebody that is maybe further up in the organization than you are. And so choosing who to be the vulnerable self with in choosing who to like just let your freak flag fly with is a conscious choice and, and you can make the wrong one and negatively impact where you're trying to go.

Carter:

Tell me something, how do you test out those relationships to find the ones where you've got someone who may be receptive to that kind of voluntary emotional vulnerability? It's hard, right? It's tough. It is so tough. And like what I find as a leader is sometimes I have to show it to others people

Dianne:

so that they know it's okay to show it to me, know what I mean? But even so I find, I look at myself as a pretty tolerant person. You know, I've had people, whether they're employees or just coworkers, you know, cry on in situations, they've gotten super emotional, they've gotten frustrated and yelled at me or you know, vented or whatever. And I'm a pretty tolerant person. Not everybody is that way, but I, I like to think that those people felt comfortable to do that for me because I shared a little bit of that vulnerability with them. And so one of the things, one of the things I like to do is I have, I have a, a sort of a list of S of simple facts that I share about myself to kind of establish that, Hey, it's cool to be you. It's cool to be you. You know, when I'm talking to somebody for the first time and there are facts that are pretty innocuous, but it does give you a little bit of insight into who I am and I feel comfortable sharing them. So it doesn't make me feel extra vulnerable to say it. It won't make me feel stupid if like the leader of our company found that thing out about me. But it does help establish with the people that I'm talking to that you know, I'm just as weird as you. I'm just, I'm just, I, you know what I mean? And I'm just as crazy as the next person and it's okay to be you. But even even for me, there's parts where people sometimes can share too much. Sometimes

Carter:

it's modeling good behavior and building a safe space where people can sort of stretch their emotional wings out a little bit. I feel like is one of the hardest tasks as a leader that I have either tried to demonstrate or I've seen others work to demonstrate because it is, it can be a narrow bridge, right? How do I show enough of myself, but how do I make sure I'm leaving space for others? Show that as well. And also how do I help people figure out like on the volume control that this space is welcome from zero to seven, but if you go to eight or nine or 11 let's find a different safe space for that. Yep. Yep.

Dianne:

You and I both probably have a, have big personalities and it is really easy when you're letting your big personality out to end up with other people intentionally or not feel crowded out a little bit. You know, cause it's the people that aren't quite so big a personality, they want to, they want to have their little slice of the, of the space too. But when you're in there filling it up, it can be really hard and, and that's, that's really hard to self regulate. Like how do you know when you're being too big, when you're being too much, when you're sharing too much. It's, it's tough. It's tough to do that. And I think it just, if there was one thing I think that might help cause, and it's something that I try to do, I'm not always successful but to just be super tuned in to the reactions of the people around you. You can tell by body language, by the things that they save. They go quiet, you know, that there's something going on there. I'm sharing too much. This person is like, you know, doing this kind of, Oh they're looking away. They, those are some cues that can let you know you're, you're going too far. Like I can tell you the other day, I'll share this. The other day I was having a rough day and I lost it. I lost it with my boss and I could tell it made her uncomfortable cause she got a phone with me right away. You know? And it was things like that where you're just like, okay, okay that was too much. And you learn and you live and you learn, you know, you live and you learn. And sometimes that's the only way to do it is just to, to just pay close attention. You can take a risk and maybe it pans out and maybe it doesn't, you know, and you just live in, you learn and now you know, that's too far.

Carter:

Sometimes the only way to find the light is to get across it.

Dianne:

Sometimes it is because otherwise you assume the line is here when really it might be out further and you don't know that because you're assuming that it's right in front of you.

Carter:

Yes. I feel like I have a responsibility as somebody with that big personality that will fill up a space to be real tuned in. Like you said, to the reactions of the people around me and to use the power of my big personality gives me to give them space. Yes, absolutely.

Dianne:

Into your big personality bubble.

Carter:

Absolutely. Like my job is to make sure you have a spot and if I'm in, if I'm in a group with other big personalities and some people who don't have those big personalities and the people with not so big personalities to get kind of that walked on, look on their face, I feel like it is part of my job, part of my responsibility to go push back the wall for them a little bit, let them let them come out and play as well.

Dianne:

[inaudible] that's such a good point. Such a good point. You can use. You can use those skills for good. Right? You can use that personality to make it inclusive or you can use that personality to make it where it pushes people out and, and it really takes that socially, that social awareness of just really paying attention to your environment. Who's feeling what, tuning yourself into what's going on and not being so much in your own head about am I showing up? The way I want to, you know, is, are other people able to show up as well?

Carter:

And I, I feel like, and I don't, I don't know how you feel. I feel like it's a practice practice. Absolutely. There's so much introspection of, okay, what's the room like right now? What am I doing? How am I contributing? And then later even there's kind of a, almost a sort of an internal monologue to go through to sort of replay what did I do? What, where did I make it better? What didn't go well? Absolutely. Where did I not help? What can I do differently next time? Yes.

Dianne:

Yes, yes. All of this is so good. And so I think, I think we're about ready to wrap it up. The points I think that came out today that I want to just restate really quick is true. Authenticity is where your thoughts met, your words, met your actions and then doing that helps other people to believe you in a build your credibility with them as a leader. Make sure that you're creating a space of psychological safety. If you've got one of those big personalities, use it to bring other people in. Share a little bit about yourself to help other people know that it's okay to share with you as you are being yourself and sharing things. Keep an eye on the reactions of the people around you. Hone your social awareness skills to really interpret what or even ask, you know, I hate interpreting is risky sometimes. Sometimes you just got to ask but to understand what's that? Where's that line? Because it might be further away than you think. It also might be closer than you think and it's just important to understand with each person. Where is that line. Some of the things that we do when defining who we are is aligning our sense of self with how we look and the things that we wear and how our hair is, and all of that stuff. And you can still be yourself if you're able to divorce, how you look with who you are. And maybe you can't. Maybe you're the kind of person that your spiky hair or orange Popsicle hair or whatever is who you are. And if that's the case, just find, find it a job in a place in life where that is cool and people appreciate that and enjoy it. All right, well, I want to thank everybody for listening today, and especially Carter. Thank you so much for joining me today. This was so much fun. I just appreciate you, Diane. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Thank you so much. All right, we're gonna. We're going to sign off everybody. Have a wonderful, wonderful week and we'll talk to you next time. Bye now.[inaudible].