Daring To Draw Right Lines
I want you to take care of this job by today, as I am going on vacation from tomorrow.
Mr. R’s (masked the name) boss delegated her work without checking the boundaries.
Mr. R said to me if it was my earlier self, I would have slogged for hours and gotten the job done by the next day to continue to gain her acceptance.
However, after realizing the mistakes he had been making, he said to her, Yes, I will take care, but, you know, I’ll close by 6️⃣PM.
He was courageously saying that with complete confidence.
The supervisor was shocked by his response as she was never used to this response.
For years, she was used to him working late nights to get the job done and assumed the default this time.
I was elated to hear how he has managed to transition to this balance!
At the outset, this win might look very small. However, Mr. R got a dimensional shift in his mindset.
Would you consider this a coaching win?
I would say Big Yes 👍
I’m sure you would have heard the familiar refrain of co-workers and superiors jokingly referring to a colleague leaving on time as someone taking a “Half day.”
Mr. R is an
➡️ “Ideal” employee – Give him a task, and he will burn the midnight oil to finish it.
➡️ “Ideal” team player – Accommodate poor performers in the project when a manager says we don’t have good talent in the market.
➡️ “Ideal” Learner – One of his strengths is the strength of “Learning” based on the Gallup Assessment. He sees every such opportunity as an opportunity to “Learn.”
However, If you see the underlying mindset, He was working under the influence of fear of the unknown.
⛔ He was as far from being happy with his personal and professional growth
⛔ His approach to decision-making is often based on the needless worry of approval from others
⛔ Instinct to avoid conflicts with the team and supervisor
⛔ His Learner strength is turned into his weakness.
⛔ He gives last priority to himself.
⛔ He is scarifying his boundaries even though he is in bad shape (above 110KG/ 225 lbs).
Mr. R went through my 1-1 transformational coaching program coupled with a personality assessment and mental fitness, and he gained a lot of self-awareness.
In a short window, Mr. R understood that, while his strengths of hard work, dedication, and commitment to goals were commendable, those strengths were now working against him due to overdoing or overplaying his strengths in fear of acceptance.
He got courage inside him. His fear of conflict was overshadowing him. It had a relationship to childhood experience as he stayed far from his parents at a very early age. He learned to throw the toxicity in relationships by fighting the behaviors, not the person.
He has high levels of empathy & love for others. It turned him into a pleaser. He avoids conflicts to save his relationships, whether it is personal or professional.
In our coaching sessions, our goal was to create self-awareness in a way that could awaken the courage within him.
Once he learned about himself better, he started changing his approach to using his natural strengths.
Mr. R sent me a voice note yesterday highlighting his success.
He mentioned how he could finally draw those lines after a long time.
It took a significant amount of courage to risk conflict and, indeed, his long-term relationship with his supervisor to be able to do this. Still, to my immense pleasure, he managed to do it!
What makes this interesting is that initially, his supervisor was shocked since she had always seen a different working style from him. When she understood his rationale, she was highly supportive and respectful of what he was trying to do.
She mentioned that she would work towards creating those boundaries and helping herself!
In closing, I would like to say that we all should get to that balance where we can draw clear boundaries without fear and be aware of strength-based blind spots.
We are uniquely gifted.
It is our adventure to discover them and use them in the right way.
