A Winning You
by Miki Saxon
The following quotes are from an interview with Charlotte Beers, former chairwoman and C.E.O. of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, and meant specifically for women leaders.
As usual, I find that such insights and advice focused on a certain demographic is applicable to a much broader audience.
Don’t let someone tell you who you are. Keep your own scorecard, and it has to include the good, the bad and the ugly.
This is a humongous insight that qualifies as real wisdom.
Too often our perception of self is, in reality, a reflection of how our various worlds see and treat us; worse, that perception is often colored by negative experiences that happened to the person we were years ago and bear no relationship to who we are now.
Sometimes a company’s culture is a big influencer in how you see yourself, and you have to sift through that and see if it’s a fit. Part of it is knowing yourself so well that you know where you fit, and knowing yourself so well that you know why you work.
I would disagree and say that all of it, “it” being anything you do/try to do/want to do, is knowing yourself (the good, bad, ugly and inane).
Company culture as an influencer is more than sometimes, it is all the time. Culture is the atmosphere you breathe and the values by which you work. If you are not at least synergistic with the culture going in you will either leave or be co-opted into its vision of values.
Beers also talks about what she looks for when hiring.
I’m trying to understand how they used the power to hire and fire and promote and make those kinds of invisible choices that really affect other people’s lives. If they don’t have some generosity of spirit and some quality of teaching, I worry that they’re not going to bring along a strong culture.
I’m trying to find out if they have confidence about the things that matter, their own ability to think and to get to the true center of things.
The importance of these traits to a potential manager pales in comparison to their importance to the individual.
Understanding these things about yourself in conjunction with your scorecard provide a firm foundation on which to tweak the you-you-are, as well as to build the you-you-want-to-be.
Take a minute and read the entire interview—it’s well worth your time.
Flickr image credit: bradleypjohnson
