Leaning in to your weirdo advantage

This was a topic covered this week by my friend Carla Watkins , a self proclaimed 'magical colourful weirdo' but also an amazing entrepreneur and someone who has taught me that its ok to be yourself.

Being yourself at work is something I am keen to hear views on, as someone who at times has found it frustrating that workplaces are treated like some form of prison camp or personality sucking vacuum.

Back in the good old days of sitting in an office all day, you would find yourself spending more time with your colleagues than you did your partner, or children, or pets. Even now we are working from home, or hybrid, work will for the most part be your main task each day, this is why we have weekends folks - to switch our focus back to those second priority people in our lives (sorry kids).

So my question is..... does work have to be serious? I'm not talking laugh out loud, dress like a clown every day, but that simple desire to share snippets of your personal lives with colleagues, learn a bit about them, see if you have more in common than your love of spreadsheets. The want to be able to have time across your computers to converse and share, to organise a social gathering or celebrate someone's birthday.

Don't get me wrong, I know this isn't for everyone, I may be the exception, as someone who rather enjoys the company of others, that I wish to extend this to my work life. Maybe this is the weirdo I want to lean in to, I want to be your friend and get to know you (and not in a creepy Joe from 'You' way), I'm going to be spending a lot of time with you so I want to be able to just be myself.

I have been told that one of my traits is that I have the ability to not be phased by hierarchy and that I will speak to everyone exactly the same no matter of status or position. I'm just not sure how this goes down. Is this ability also one of my biggest flaws? Am I always seen as not professional enough because I launch straight into friend mode and don't stop to think about my airs and graces?

Another side of my personality that can be a bit marmite is my humour, and that I often use this as a way to interject into a conversation. With a big bulk of my work life now taking place on teams and messenger, I find myself being 'the joker' more and more. I got told that this may hamper my ability to progress in an organisation, and after that was paranoid about commenting on anything. I spoke to a colleague who said, 'but that's you, it doesn't impact the quality of your work, and it means people get to see your personality'. I admit I have made a conscious effort to tone it down a bit since that first comment, but it also got me thinking about the 'work personas' that some people must put on. I wouldn't know, this article is proof that what you get is me 100% of the time, but I'm curious to know if its exhausting not being yourself in the pursuit of progression?

In a previous role, I managed a team and this was my first real management experience so I decided from the outset that I would go into it as myself, which meant that I took the personable empathetic approach to management. I got to know my team, we socialised, (we even went to each others weddings), we shared conversations about our personal lives, but do you know what we also did? We built trust, and confidence, and the ability to work amazingly as a team. We knew what each other was doing and helped each other out when it was needed and we produced amazing results, and got feedback from around the organisation about how approachable and productive we were. My team were never scared to ask me anything, or approach me, be it professional or personal and they knew I would always have their back and all I wanted was for them to progress onto amazing things - which they all have I am pleased to say.

I remember my manager at the time saying, I don't think you are approaching this the right way, you cant be friends with them and expect to be someone they see as a person of authority. He later admitted he had got it wrong and that I was the best people manager he had ever worked with.

At the end of the day as long as you hit deadlines and deliver a good standard of work, it is my belief you should be able to achieve this however you see fit, even if this includes 30 minute conversations on Great British Bake Off.

And what work relationships haven't developed more in a social setting (says the woman who married a colleague... Friday night office pub trips have a lot to answer for). I know that I have certainly benefitted from getting to know colleagues outside of an office, which has led to them remembering me (in a good way) when they think I could benefit from hearing about something they are working on.

I am not advocating getting smashed and dancing on tables every week, but what about having that meeting in person, over a coffee, instead of over Teams. What about taking time to understand why Joan in the office is upset and if there is anything you can do to help, rather than making her feel like she's a personnel issue. What is it they say, in a world where you can be anything, be nice.

Maybe this is why I was destined to find a career that involved networking, when I was an analyst there was no call to go out and meet the outside world, so my colleagues were my social outlet. My office was my networking event.

The feedback I get from my Ambitious Women in Essex events is that people enjoy them because they are very welcoming and friendly and casual, the right environment where lone women can walk in and strike up a conversation immediately. I take pride in knowing that small part of that is because I am being myself and projecting this onto my events. I'm leaning right into that weirdo advantage.