February: you got personality

Building on the January conversation around communications, we'll spend a bit of time on personality profiles in February. Of course, we are our own favorite subject: who am I? How does the world around me impact....me? I dare say, we often see the world as affecting us rather than us affecting the world. Reactive versus proactive. And rightly so because that's how we start life - things happen to us. Our diapers are changed, we are fed, comforted, or not fed, not comforted. We go to kindergarten, elementary and secondary school. More affecting us. And then, on to the "real" world, whether that's university or technical school or work. And now we are in a different position, and, ideally, all the lessons learned from our developmental years will have a positive influence on the rest of our life. 

So why is it we spend so much time as adults searching for our true selves? It might be because we spent so much time being told who we are, what we must do, how we must be in every situation, with or without our agreement. Now, on our own, we are faced with a choice - to continue as that person that has been molded by experiences, or, discover the person under all those layers of influence. As this isn't a parenting blog, I'll leave that discussion to someone else; but this is a post about personality - specifically, your work personality. It is less about how others' affect our life and more about how we affect others. You know you can only control you and your proactive/reactive ideas and feelings. Thus, understanding our own personality, why we do what we do, guides us towards the positive influence we can have on coworkers, employers, customers, clients, patients, etc. 

On last week's FB broadcast I introduced you to SCARF - the neuroleadership model created by David Rock (www.neuroleadership.com). Cutting edge science paired with leadership skills gives us a firm basis for understanding why we do what we do and how to use that knowledge to benefit ourselves and others. You can watch my video here and plan to tune in tomorrow, February 6, to hear the second part of that discussion. For the rest of February, I'll look at other profiles that companies use to assess their employees and discuss which ones I think are best and why. 

I like this Lloyd Price song - Personality - give it a listen below if you'd like a little throwback music to hum along to while you work. 

Loving the sun sparkling on the snow. Special shout-out to my brother, Terry, for the beautiful memories.