Embracing the AND
Have you ever noticed how challenging it can be to answer the question of “what do you do?” In a moment we are expected to choose a label for ourselves that will be concise and clear enough for the other person to understand.
We are constantly oversimplifying ourselves in this way, whether out of politeness, to conform to the norm, or perhaps out of fear. That means we show up in different contexts as different fragments of our whole selves. At work I'm a project manager, with friends I'm the bar hopping companion, and at home I'm the mom and caretaker.
Fragmenting yourself is an energy drain because of the mental gymnastics of constantly editing and compartmentalizing aspects of yourself. And the kicker is that it’s also preventing you from living up to your full potential.
You’re working too hard and it’s making you less effective.
To manage your energy and realize your full potential, you need to transform into an integrated leader. As an integrated leader, all parts of you are welcome at all times. To embrace the good, the bad, and everything in-between is an act of true vulnerability.
When I first started coaching, I was showing up as the serious professional part of me, leaving behind my sense of humor, creativity, and silliness. When I made a mistake, it was hard to recover, partially because I was only tapping into a small portion of my resources. When I began to coach from an integrated place — bringing all parts of me, including the humor, creativity, silliness, and more — I found more ease and felt more connected to my clients.
The process of stepping into integrated leadership is three-fold:
Inventory all your pieces to get the whole picture of you. Much like Marie Kondo has you pull all of your clothes out of the closet to examine them, you need to gather up all the pieces of your identity. And some might be hiding in dark corners. For me, it manifests as identities left behind in times of transition. When I started training as a designer, the musician was left behind. Take time to think through what you might have hidden or suppressed out of shame, incongruence, or a fear it would hold you back.
Embrace AND to tell your new, integrated story. You’ve been operating from a place of OR: I’m either a designer OR a musician, I can’t be both at any one time. An integrated story takes the pieces of your inventory and strings them together with AND: I’m a designer AND a musician. Notice the new possibilities that come alive from embracing your uniqueness and complexity. As a designer/musician perhaps I’ll work in a medium where I can combine design and sound. Or maybe I’ll design for musicians. This is an act of embracing your complexity and uniqueness (and messiness!). Look at where you can find opportunities in embracing your AND.
Take action to live your integration. The choice to operate as an integrated leader is really the repeated daily choices to act from bravery and vulnerability instead of fear and doubt. Now that you’re aware of when and how you’re showing up fractured, you have the opportunity to choose to do differently. Maybe that looks like giving an honest and more complicated answer to “what do you do?” or perhaps it’s allowing personal topics to show up at work (and vice versa).
Here are a few questions to start your exploration:
How do you change your labels/roles in different contexts?
What about yourself do you simplify because it seems incongruent?
How do you acquiesce to the mold?
When you lead from an integrated place, not only do you make space for all of you to belong, you also make space for everyone around you to belong, elevating their ability to perform at their best.
If you’re interested in exploring more, check out the Discovering Your Authentic Leadership workshop, which will walk you through the Inventory / Embrace / Integrate framework.