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Building Relationships Through Likability: Bring Authenticity to Difficult Situations in the Workplace, with Michelle Lederman, Connection Instigator and Author, The 11 Laws of Likability
Think about the situations that you face at work and where you struggle to be authentic in your interactions. I will share with you the most common response I get to that question is: when you have to get behind an idea at work that you’re really not behind. And that happens all the time. And you can still be authentic in those moments.
Getting Behind Ideas You Disagree With
We don’t have to show up and be like, “Isn’t this great?” When you don’t really feel that, that’s not authentic. And you also can’t really show up in the workplace and say, “Ugh, this is horrible but we have to do it”. Because that’s very hard to get the team behind you and to do a productive and effective job for the organization. It doesn’t bode well. It might be a – what do they call them? – career limiting move. So we need to kind of find that balance somewhere in between to bring honesty and authenticity to how we feel about a situation, but still be able to further the cause.
Here’s my suggestion. Think about bringing how you feel and how you process the information that you received. So you might start with, “I want to share with you the information of the decision that’s been made. The plan is…Now, I know you’re all aware that my suggestion for this plan was different. But what I want to remind us all is that the goal is the same. Here is the intent of what we’re trying to do. Who was behind that?”
Now you start to get them with you, because we all want that same outcome. And if we all want that same outcome, the chance of getting there might work. And you know what? I want it to work. So let’s get behind it and help make it work, even if it wasn’t our first choice of how. That’s a way to show up and be real with your team that they can feel fair, listened to, heard, validated – and still say, you know what, I can get behind this. I want it to work, too.
Being Non-Strategic in a Strategy-Oriented World
One of the things that can help you with authenticity is to be non-strategic. I know that might go against a lot of what we’re taught in organizations and in building our careers, but sometimes when you allow things to happen organically and not intentionally, it feels a little bit more spacious, and it gives you that room to bring your full self. So instead of saying, “I want to go meet that person or I want to make this happen”, just make the friends you want to make. Go to the events you feel like being at. And then you can show up with the productive energy that’s going to get you the results that you want.