Self-awareness and inner work are like basic training activities for warriors. The true warrior knows that looking within is as, if not more, important as looking outward to find the balance of the battles worth fighting and where a more peaceful approach will be most effective. This is a practice that shows up in many different philosophies and religions. In yoga, the practice of “self-inquiry” is also one of the core principles. Here in the western world we tend to only think of yoga as a physical practice to help maintain the strength and resiliency of the body, but that physical practice or asana is just one of the 8 limbs of yoga. Another limb is called niyama, which encompasses the “internal duties.” Self-observation and self-inquiry fall into this segment.
We can do this work through a variety of methods including meditation, reading philosophical or spiritual texts, journaling to release cyclical thoughts and ruminations, working with therapists or coaches, or engaging in any activity that allows us the space to take a look at ourselves and the way we interact with the world around us, as opposed to distracting ourselves from sitting with our thoughts and feelings.
It can also be helpful to get perspectives from trusted external sources such as friends or colleagues who are willing to provide honest feedback about our personalities and the way we show up in various circumstances. We’ve talked previously about having a trusted tribe that can hold a mirror up for us. Seeing how others see us is additional information that can inform our introspective work.
In some workplace environments it has become common practice to administer various personality tests to employees. I had never experienced this in my academic career, or when I worked for the military, but it is a ubiquitous practice in the corporate world. It can be another helpful external, somewhat scientifically objective, tool to use when trying to identify behaviors within ourselves and also to characterize individual team members’ strengths and potential challenges or blindspots.
These tests use the answers to questions about how you typically respond to certain situations, or preferences for various types of tasks, to assign you a personality “color” that aims to summarize which general traits and characteristics define you, the way you handle challenges and how you relate to people. We can use this information to better understand ourselves and to help others understand how to communicate and work most effectively with us. The tests also teach us how to analyze other personalities we may deal with in our jobs or even our daily lives. If we know ourselves better and what our tendencies are, and we can assess the type of person we are dealing with in a given situation, we can become adept at flexing our style and approach to meet others where they are at, and for their assigned “color.” Using this approach, we may find it easier to achieve harmony as well as increase productivity and attainment of our goals.
But what happens when we are surprised by the results of one of these tests, or disagree with how our personalities are defined by external sources? Is it possible to have a true mismatch of our own view of ourselves and other people, or how so-called objective measures perceive us? How “off” could we be in our own self-assessment of who we are, and what can we do when we receive external objective feedback that completely opposes who we think we are?
I consider myself a pretty self-aware person and have always practiced introspection; yet, several times I have been shocked by the findings of some of these tests and wanted to vehemently oppose them as “fake news.”
In a previous post I detailed some hard feedback I received during a certain season of my life around my style of communication being a bit “too direct.” And last week I talked about the inner work I did in response to that feedback using Pema Chodron’s “When Things Fall Apart” to try and find more balance in my thought processes, moving away from extremes and more towards the “middle.”
When I emerged from that time period to take on my next career opportunities, I admit that I was a bit “gun shy” about showing up as myself. I was trying very hard to course-correct any perception that I was “too much” but I didn’t really yet understand how to balance appropriate levels of drive and determination with restraint and observation, so I erred on overcorrecting and swinging the pendulum to the other side. In the context of previous personality tests I had taken, I was trying to shift from being more direct (commonly associated with the color “red”) to more warm and connecting (commonly associated with the color “yellow”).
In the first company I worked for post-mindset shift we were given yet another personality test during our orientation. I was actually angry when I saw the result. I turned up as a “red” again, but in this particular test (Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument, or HBDI), the meaning of “red” was “feeling-based and emotions.” This definition felt too soft and squishy for me and I didn’t like it. I had rejected that part of myself for so long as I tried to be tough, strong, resilient and not let anything or anyone hold me back. And yet, that very persona had held me back in some ways, and I had intentionally been working on adapting myself to be more accommodating, so why was I so annoyed that I was now showing up as this emotional and feelings-based person? Wasn’t this what I was trying to do?
In hindsight I can see that I was uncovering natural inclinations within myself that had been buried for a long time, and per another previous post revealing the hypocrisy that sometimes occurs when we are trying on different styles of thinking and feeling, that type of resistance and strong persona was beneficial for survival during a time when I felt I needed to be pushing, driving, seeking and growing into a new career with a desire to prove my worth to a new community in the corporate world. The HBDI test I took after receiving hard feedback and working on finding a more “middle way” showed that I was allowing my “feeling and relating” side to come through stronger. This was the goal, but the reality of it was also scary to me. I was letting my guard down, being more vulnerable, and putting down my sword. And I really liked my sword…
Fast-forward to the next two roles I took on and two more distinct personality tests that showed my drive was still alive and well, but I was still not content with the findings.
The DISC assessment showed me as a “D,” for “Dominance” which represented that I was strong in “results, actions and taking on challenges,” BUT parts of my profile also reached into the realms of “enthusiasm and collaboration.” The test report stated that these last two traits “are not characteristic of the dominant style.” So maybe I had found my balance? Coincidentally or not, it was in this particular role at this particular company where I had finally started to believe in myself again. The role was a HUGE stretch outside my comfort zone but I had an incredibly supportive manager who believed in me from day one, despite the gaps in my specific content knowledge, which, she assured me, everyone has at the beginning and she had no doubt I’d catch up. I was still working on not getting attached to external validation (seeking praise and avoiding blame), but I felt a sigh of relief when my first performance review at that job rated me at “exceeds expectations.” I know, I know, if I was walking the middle way it wouldn’t have mattered what my rating was, but I really needed that validation at that time, and I felt I could finally start bringing my whole self to the workplace again.
That positive experience and associated reclaiming of my confidence allowed me to continue to stretch myself into another growth opportunity where, you guessed it, we took ANOTHER personality test. This time it was the Insights Discovery test. I had become pretty confident that my inner work was stabilizing this nice balance of being driven and determined while also embracing my “softer” side. In fact, I was fully convinced that I was now showing up with more of my “yellow” at the forefront, and reserving my “red” only as a back-up, in the rare case that I came across a battle that I needed to fight. But for the most part, my sword was sheathed. Or so I thought…
The Insights personality test included a facilitated workshop to help us dive deeper into the results of the test. The facilitator had a group of 20 of us play a game where we taped a circular graph to our backs containing 4 quadrants. Each of the 4 insight colors (red, yellow, blue and green) was represented in a different quadrant. We were then given a sheet of sticker-dots in each of the 4 insight colors and were asked to walk around and place the colored dot in the respective quadrant that we perceived represented the personality color of our colleagues. Because the graphs were taped to our backs we could not see how our colleagues had defined us until the game was over.
I was certain that my graph was going to contain all yellow dots, identifying me as the “sociable, demonstrative, enthusiastic and persuasive” personality type. They even called it “sunshine yellow” because it is such a pleasant personality type. That had to me! But when we all sat down at the conference table and took the signs off our backs all I saw was RED–literally and figuratively. Every. Single. Dot. placed by my colleagues was in the red zone. I was truly flabbergasted. I couldn’t even focus on what the facilitator was saying as she started the next section of the workshop so I interrupted her abruptly and asked if I could have a moment to address my 20 colleagues in the room. When she conceded the floor to me I held my chart up and asked everyone why they all thought I was red. The stunned faces staring back at me froze for a few moments and then a brave soul said, “well, I rated you as red because when I get on a conference call and see that you are also on the call I breathe a sigh of relief thinking that at least there’s someone who will speak up when necessary.” A second person echoed her sentiment, saying he also meant it as a compliment, that I fight for what I believe in and am not afraid to challenge assumptions. A few others chimed in with similar reasoning and I admitted to the group that I had really been trying to be “less red,” and felt like I had failed based on their assessment of me. This led to a great discussion about the importance of having “red people” and the positive associations with those attributes. This was a complete reframe from how I had previously interpreted this part of my personality, based on the feedback I’d been given in the past. Then a good friend of mine lightheartedly pointed out the irony of me stopping the entire workshop to discuss my colleagues’ ratings of me and what a “red” thing that was for me to do. Guilty as charged. No matter where we go, there we are.
The takeaway lessons here include the need for both self-inquiry and gathering feedback and perspective from others we trust, and that our perception of the feedback we receive may be distorted depending on the relationship we have with the people who are giving it and our attachment to our own view of ourselves. Both sides of our assessment, the internal and the external, need to be pressure-tested once in a while.
I learned that the side of my personality that spoke up when she believed in something, that pushed back on assumptions that were not necessarily correct or were at least missing a perspective, was not all good or all bad. My colleagues in the last example appreciated my red, and didn’t see it as a detriment. They recognized that those red traits are not inherent in everyone, and that it’s important to have a mix of characters or “colors” to make a team even stronger. Previously I worked with individuals who did not appreciate these traits, or at least felt that they didn’t need to be so forcefully and consistently employed, which I interpreted to mean I should get rid of them altogether. Of course the truth is always somewhere in the middle–sometimes you need to temper your red, and sometimes you need to exert it to move things forward or defend a worthy cause.
My collective experiences reflecting on external feedback and internal self-inquiry have helped me embrace the full spectrum of color within my palette, and reminded me once again that we get to choose how we show up in any given circumstance. We all contain all of the colors and traits in some amount and we grow the most when we learn how to use each of those colors to improve communication and relations with our teammates, colleagues, friends, family, and even strangers. We can embrace those qualities that are inherent in us and that make us unique while also recognizing the malleability and evolution available to us when we need to make changes in our approach to thinking, acting and relating to ourselves and others.
Just think how much better would the world be if we took the time to understand our own and one another’s natural styles and tendencies, how we show up in stressful situations versus when we are calm, and how we can support rather than judge one another in those times when we may not show up the way we want to. We can own our missteps and still have each others’ backs. We can continue the warrior’s work of self-inquiry and giving and receiving compassionate feedback to help one another become the best versions of ourselves.