Be YOU — and find the right role models #myOneTeamGov
It took me a long time to realise that I can be me, just as I am. It´s okay to have feelings and thoughts that aren´t the same as everyone else in every situation.
A work experience some years back brought me really down, but another one made me comfortable with just being me again. I will never let anyone make me loose myself like that again. The scary part is that the learning had to come through experience, because it happened due to lack of experience. I therefore hope these words can be of encouragement to those who are new in a job, to listen to that feeling in your gut telling you that you are uncomfortable to solve something in a certain way. If you prefer a different way to do something, explore that option and check in with you gut feeling again, no matter what some one other person might tell you is the right way based on other peoples experience. It´s not necessarily right for YOU.
I like changing habitats and usually seek new challenges or areas of expertise to broaden my horizons continuously. That means I often find myself in situations learning things I don´t know too much about. In a combination with a nature to look to others to learn and watch how others move, I have earned so much insight from being honest about what I don´t know and have had the pleasure of listening to people telling me what they know. Even more often, I seek to understand issues from different perspectives to understand different perceptions of the work.
The mistake I once made was to trust that a person had the same good honest dialogue back with me and was being as open as me with their intentions. I first had lots of ideas and it was important to me that the people I managed had a work environment of trust and safety. Then I was given the impression that being me was not enough in my position. It became a stressful situation where I felt distrusted, restless and insecure which lead me to put a lid on my concerns or actual feelings and I procrastinated and froze because I was afraid of doing something wrong.
I wasn´t experienced and trusted to ask for support and help from someone with lots of experience and thought I had to act and do things the same way. Turns out it collided completely with who I was a a person, and the strengts I have.
Long story short, I changed environment, and it took a long time before I realised how far away from my true self I had been, and how deep I had supressed my way of being.
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After that experience, a great leader saw me and gave me support and trust and responsibilities to make me connect with myself again. He just believed in me, having seen what I had done before and trusted I could do things in my own way. I am forever thankful for those hours he spent with me talking, guiding and providing a safe space encouraging to be every part of my self.
Years of experience is great, but I will always pay forward the lessons about creating safe spaces for people to be themselves. That is success to me.
#myOneTeamGov — stories made me feel more confident with being me, understanding that my way wasn´t at all so bad, or different from what many others also recognised as a good way of doing things.
Oneteamgov also showed me how important it is to do things YOUR way, with your strengths and in a community that supports and challenges in a safe environment. That is also inclusion and diversity, the differences aren´t always visible to the eye. Stumbling on the outlines of who you are does not lead to a great balance in life — you have to stand firmly within yourself. Only then can you allow others around you to stand firmly in themselves, instead of imposing your way onto others. You can learn skills, but not stop being true to your self.
A lot of people ask me how I seem to find the time for engaging in activities in OneTeamGov. The answer is short. I dont consider it an extra activity, but a pro-longued arm I need in order to do my work.
See, I really want to enable change. I have experienced again and again the same kind of hurdles in digitisation projects and I am not the one who feels content by argumentation like “well, its always been this way” or “that is just something we cant change” or “its just the way it is or has to be”. I dont believe in that. Change comes with willpower from enough people to drive changes that are necessary in order to perform better, act smarter or be wiser. Change, also structural ones, is inevitable.
To enable change we need to know what the alternatives are, and that is where a community like #OneTeamGov that I share core values with becomes so valuable. It can showcase through behaviour and examples what can be done, and therefore also make me feel more empowered and braver to do the same.
