This post provides additional insights men have during their working careers.
Findings
Emotions: One manager feels he is intuitive and knows what moves to make regarding his work and career. A negative insight is that he experiences situations intensely and is emotional. He has to work actively with this side of himself.
Charging: A consultant gained the insight that he is idealistic and optimistic. He sleeps on issues and then finds ways to resolve them. He has difficulty charging for what he feels he is worth. He knows that when he is impatient he gives off negative body language.
Interpersonal: One senior manager knows his interpersonal skills are strong, that he is enthusiastic, full of energy and able to spot talent easily and develop people. He is critical of himself. An insight he gained is that he underestimates and undersells himself.
An additional insight is that he prefers to react off the cuff and dislikes planning. He gets bored quickly. What he sees as passion is often seen as him coming across too strongly by others.
Driven: A consultant feels he connects well with people, is able to engage others and obtain consensus readily. He is good at growing young people.
An insight he gained on the negative side is that he is judgmental with people and makes his mind up quickly. He also shows his irritation easily. He states that he is not good at showing his vulnerability. In addition, he sets high standards for himself and others. There has never been balance between work and family life. His focus in the past was on his career so he was never there with important times for his daughters. As a result this is a very deep regret for him.
Mastering yourself: Another consultant says he has had to learn to be patient especially when things are not happening. At times he needs to surrender and just let go and see how situations unfold. He has learnt to trust people and knows he can rely on himself to solve problems even if it takes time.
A negative insight he had is that he dislikes change and will sometimes ignore inner voices about the need to change. This means he has stayed in positions longer than he should have. He is getting better at this. He is a perfectionist so needs to guard against falling into a negative spiral. However, this is something he is intensely aware of.
Suffering fools: One executive becomes very irritated when people are insincere. He is tolerant and accommodating and tries to understand where others come from. Furthermore, he stands up for the principles he believes in even if it may be a bit of a risk. Relationships are very important.
A harsh insight is that you do not share your inner thoughts with everyone. He feels he has grown with every challenge. In addition, he likes to stay close to the operational level too so that he knows what is happening in the company.
On the negative side an insight is that he feels he needs to guard against being vindictive. As a Scorpian star sign he is aware of the sting in his tail. He is fully aware of the fact that he is capable of using other people’s tactics against them at times.
Merit versus BEE: One senior executive emphasised that he arrived where he is today on merit not just as a BEE appointment. His life is about relationships. So he believes you do not achieve as an individual but as a team of people. He has a very good relationship with the CEO.
Despite the challenges in the corporate world he feels he has managed to stay true to himself at work. He learnt not to make demands of his children and has never interfered in their lives. He does sometimes wonder if he should have been more involved as a father.
A less helpful insight is that he is not a glory person so may under-present his team.
Coaching: A senior manager feels he gained wisdom through being coached on how to deal with issues. He learnt to listen and not take things personally. He sought authenticity. On the shadow side an insight is that he can be rude when he is frustrated. As a result he becomes very economical with his words. He can also disengage or become argumentative at times when he senses that someone is serving their own interests.
Life is about growing and learning through our challenges. Consider coaching of you would like to gain insight into your behaviour.
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