StandOut (11 page)

When people do not follow through on their commitments. This bugs the heck out you. You will push them, or yourself, to do whatever it takes to ensure that the commitment is met. If it isn’t, then the only way to pull the world back into balance is to make amends in some way.

When someone is wronged. Yours is a moral world, and so it offends you when someone’s wrong is not righted. You are a passionate defender of people’s rights, including your own.

Where you see huge disparities of reward and/or praise. You have a strong sense of the innate worth of each person, and it offends you when someone is raised up significantly higher than another. No matter how talented this person may be, it just doesn’t seem right to you.

• You are a categorical person. Black and white. True or false.
Don’t give me pretty pictures and grand claims
, you think to yourself.
Just tell me if you did it or you didn’t
.

• You are predictable and consistent. At least you strive to be. This is why people come to trust you.

• People come to you when they want clarity and opinion. You weigh things in your mind and get a strong sense of what the
right
thing to do is in almost any situation.

• You think in terms of
who has the “right” to do this?
Rights and responsibilities are your guides. It offends you when you think that someone has overstepped their bounds and done something they have no right to do. You will fight for redress.

How to Describe Yourself (in Interviews, Performance Reviews)

• “I am a highly responsible person.”

• “People always know where they stand with me, even if sometimes they don’t like where they stand.”

• “I am the kind of person who takes a stand for causes I deeply believe to be right, even if it puts me in the minority. For example, there was this time when . . .”

• “I’m at my best when I’m persuading people to see what is right and do what is right—even if they are tempted to do something else.”

• “I hate unfinished work. It just eats at me. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

• “I’m totally transparent. What you see with me is what you get. I am not good at all with hidden agendas— whether my own, or other peoples’.”

• “Sometimes I can be a little blunt with people, but I hope they come to see me as someone whom they can always trust to speak truthfully.”

How to Make an Immediate Impact

• People like certainty.
Follow-through is the surest way to give them this certainty
. No matter how tempting it might be to look around the corner to the next opportunity, begin by being conservative about what you are prepared to commit to and then make sure you do what you say you are going to do—on time, on budget, no surprises. This will establish your reputation.

• Claim your love of bringing order to things
. So many people shy away from disorder that it will be a relief for your colleagues to learn that someone on the team likes confronting disorder.

• Speak your values
. This doesn’t mean to tell everyone how honest you are—counterintuitively, the more you profess your honesty, the less people believe it to be true. It means be explicit about what you believe and what you value. Of course, your behavior is going to prove it out, but your beliefs are so much a part of who you are that talking about them will sound authentic.

• You are a truth teller. One of the first ways you’ll make an impact is by
calling out what you see as inappropriate, ineffective, or even unethical behavior
. The good news is that soon people will come to realize that you don’t merely parrot the party line, and over time they will trust what they hear from you. The downside, of course, is that some people will not like what you have to say, and some will feel judged by you. Especially at the start, find a way to speak your truth without offending the person on the receiving end. Call out the behavior you disagree with, rather than the person, for example, “It’s hard to have this meeting if you keep showing up late” as opposed to “You don’t care about this team, do you?”

• You have an instinctive sense of fairness, even on those occasions when your sense of fairness leads you to conclude that you don’t deserve something you’ve been given.
This sort of objectivity, even when it leads to your disadvantage, is rare
. There will be opportunities to showcase it. Seek them out.

• Help your colleagues find the right method for getting complex tasks done
. Some people get overwhelmed and can’t think their way forward. You can show them how to break the tasks down and move ahead, step-by-step. Your methodical approach to work creates calm and reassurance in others.

• Set up the right circumstances where people around you can be accountable
. This means that before the project starts or at the beginning of every week, be the one who pushes for clear goals and expectations for each team member.

• Define your area of responsibility clearly
. You always function best when the boundaries of your position and others’ positions are crystal clear. If necessary, write down these boundaries and make them explicit for you and your colleagues. You’ll like this certainty and, whether they realize it or not, those around you will benefit from it.

How to Take Your Performance to the Next Level

• Seek out situations where you can stand up for the rights of others
. You are in your zone when you do this. No matter what your talents may be in other aspects of your work, when it comes to explaining what people truly deserve, you will instinctively find the words and the arguments to make their case persuasively.

• Establish your precedents
. When has this situation happened before? What were the outcomes? Who were the aggrieved parties? People will always look to you for a fair hearing, and your rationales will be better and clearer if you can point to previous experiences and situations.

• Be thorough
. As your career progresses people will place more and more weight on your judgments. Always have at your disposal all the facts and, if possible, the data behind these facts. You need, and they need, to have confidence in your judgments. Lacking the facts and the data, you run the risk of being seen as merely judgmental.

• Seek out situations where people need objective mediation
. Quite soon people will realize that you are a person who uses objective judgments—rather than your own personal goals or preferences—to determine right from wrong. The trusted advisor, the objective leader, the balanced analyst, these are all rare and valued roles that you are very well equipped to play.

• Develop your skills as a mediator
. You have natural talent in this area, but to become a master at it will take time, practice, and, more than likely, education. There are professional mediation qualifications you can acquire, skills that will help you know how to move others off the rock of their opinion and find a place of common ground. Armed with these skills you will find yourself better able to navigate through even the most dug-in positions.

What to Watch Out For

• When you say you want people to be treated fairly, what exactly do you mean
? We, your colleagues, need to know. Do you mean that everyone should be treated exactly the same? Or do you mean that each person should be treated as they deserve to be treated, bearing in mind who they are and what they have accomplished for the organization? Clearly, these are very different definitions of fairness. Which is yours?

• Be sure to apply your methodical approach to your own physical space
. You tend to think best when you have some order around you. Take this seriously. You will have better ideas and be more productive and resilient when you sense that your world—and the stuff in your world—is in its rightful place.

• Keep your focus on performance
. Occasionally your sense of fairness might lead you to overemphasize
how
someone gets work done and to ignore
what
he or she gets done.

• Make a list of the rules of fairness by which you can live
. These rules might be based upon certain values that you have or upon certain policies that you consider non-negotiables within your organization. Counterintuitively, the clearer you are about these rules, the more comfortable you will be with granting exceptions within these boundaries. If these rules or values are not explicit, people are left having to infer the grid you are using to make your judgments. This can make you appear arbitrary in your judgments—even if you aren’t.

How to Win As a Leader

Equalizer
: Your strength is the structure you bring us. We need a foundation, a grid, a framework within which to create. We turn to you for guidance.

• We trust you to do the right thing. You are so transparent about this value that it gives us confidence that we’re aligned behind an ethical and forthright individual. You do what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it. We love this about you. Protect this reputation above all else.