Willette Lamar’s Post

Transcript

Hi there. The topic for week one of the Defense Civilian Emerging Leader program was no self. We learned about self-awareness and how to become more self aware. You know, to remove blind spots, see the impact your behavior has on others, see if you're self-assessment of how you are aligns with how others view you. I decided to do this. I had never done it, soliciting feedback from others on my behavior. So I created a one question survey using Microsoft forms and I sent it to 8 of my coworkers and my supervisor and I got 6 responses back. Wow. I'll work with a great team. Let's see what they have to say about me. Alright, here is my one question survey. Please provide 3 words that you believe describe me as a coworker. 6 responses here. Let's jump right in. All right. Reserved, forthright, Autonomous. And when I viewed these, I put in my mind whether this was a good. Word or a negative word. So positive word or a negative word. Those are the buckets I put the words into in my mind. So of these. Autonomous was one that I thought could be viewed negative because it doesn't give off or give the impression of being a team player. It can be viewed positively in that someone who's autonomous. Does what needs to be done and I'm reading into it initiative without being told what needs to be done. Just do it do what they know they have to do do what's right. So these are this is run response reserved. Nothing bad there. I don't think forthright. So someone who's straight up no sugar coating it no. Find trying to play favorites and complimenting somebody to get what they want, but just someone who's forthright says what they mean, means what they said sort of thing. That's just what that's this is what I'm getting from forthright and then autonomous. All right, Next up. Withdrawn, intelligent, circumventing Ouch two of those at first blush I viewed negatively withdrawn ohh, that doesn't speak leader for someone to be withdrawn you know and I thought to myself, I need to have lunch with the team more often usually I sit at my desk and have my lunch there and. Rarely do I have lunch at the group table in the office, so I think that's one way I can be viewed as less withdrawn and more outgoing and more part of the team is by having lunch with people Intelligent, nothing bad. They're circumventing wow one at first blush I read this and I thought, wow, that is someone who's being deceptive and so I went to dictionary.com and look up the meeting of this and one meeting is to. Find a way around an obstacle. To find a way around an obstacle. So I'm going to choose to go with that meaning of the word circumventing and not the archaic meaning to be deceptive. I'm going to go with the meaning that one who can go around an obstacle, make their way around an obstacle, someone who doesn't, or not letting an obstacle stand in your way or deter you. So I'm going to go with that. I choose to go with that meeting. All right, Next up, we have intuitive, cautious, professional. Two out of three positive. The cautious one at first blush are like, oh wow, I'm cautious. That's not so much a characteristic of a leader. Leaders are known to be risk takers. I talked to this talk to my cohorts and members of my cohort about this word and they they tended to believe that it's not necessarily a negative thing. It could be viewed as someone who puts thought into a decision before making that decision, makes a well thought out decisions. Alright, so Next up we have unbiased consummate professional. Umm. So that's two words that describe me, I think, instead of. 3 consummate professional combined as one and unbiased so I really. I try to treat everyone fairly. And operating an unbiased way. And so I'm glad to know that my coworkers see that. All right, next we have. Reliable, dependable, honest, I don't know I'd have to really reach to find something negative about that was all. Those all look to be positive attributes to me. So there we have it. I said listen to some feedback from my coworkers to remove any blind spots I I may have had about how I am perceived and how I am in interacting with my coworkers. And it was a good exercise for me. I am learning so much in this Defense Civilian emerging Leader program. And we're going to just keep going, learning and doing some action planning as well.