Thought about what makes us go back to work.

As we sipped hot coffee and talked, I couldn't help but feel happy when I looked into this young man's bright eyes and saw his confident, almost cocky smile. As I get older, the only thing that makes me weak in the knees around a person is their intelligence. Deep down, the need for that enlightening conversation started to creep in. After knowing him for a year, I was meeting this person for the first time in a less formal setting for an official meeting.?The coffee shop was empty, and even with the blinds down, it was hard to take in how bright it was outside.?

The conversation took a surprising turn when the young man asked me why I liked my job so much. I looked into his eyes to see if that was the question. When I did, he finally asked me what he was wondering. He wanted to know if I was happy in my current job and if I would be running a global company if I had made a different choice. He wanted to know what was stopping me and if I thought it was a waste of my skills. Over the last two years, I've been asked this question a lot. But the answer is hard to figure out.?I thought for a moment, looked out the window at the streets, and thought for a moment about how much information I should give. I told him what I knew, but also said that I might not know the whole story. I told him about how I found out last year, to my great surprise, that I had never had a big goal in my life, no matter how bold I might have seemed. But I always had too many goals, too many deep interests in too many things, and I never had one true calling in life, as Emilie Wapnick so beautifully explained in her Ted Talk named "Why Some of Us Don't Have One True Calling." Then, as I looked out the window, I told him again that I had been sad initially because I hadn't thought "I couldn't do what I could have done," but rather "I couldn't do all that I could have done." I also told him it was hard to accept that I would never have a great job or do something that would make people remember me after I died. I felt bad for all of my bosses who had told me at least once that I was destined for greatness. But I also said that accepting that I would never be good at anything was just as freeing.

To explain why I'd been at my current job for eight years, I told him that people with too many goals, like us ("MICROPOTENTIALITES" or "POLYMATH" as Emilie Wapnick calls us), lose interest in things too quickly, which can lead to boredom and lack of discipline. Only the chance to keep coming up with new ideas keeps us going in our jobs. But in my past jobs, my desire to create and my ability to come up with new ideas became my biggest risk. Organizations didn't define my constantly changing role, and my bosses were so impressed by how well I came up with new ideas that they forgot to hold me responsible and keep an eye on me after a certain amount of time. Everyone has a certain amount of stress they can handle before they can be creative and effective. Without a clear job and a sense of duty, my stress level went below the threshold, I got bored, and I stopped getting things done. On the other hand, my current job gave me just the right amount of stress to keep me going. It has given me just enough praise (or maybe a little less) for my creativity to keep me going, but it has never failed to hold me responsible for even the smallest part of the job I was hired to do. Too small of a space made me feel trapped, and too big of a place made me feel lost.

Even though I didn't want to move up in my job, I didn't know how to answer his question about why I decided to continue working for my current company.?I didn't say anything right away because I had just figured out the answer to that question for myself. I was also afraid to open up because I knew that whatever I told him was exactly what he was missing in his current position of power. With how smart this young man was, I was sure he would quickly understand the points I was going to make.?

In any case, I chose to talk about it. And I just did that to someone else for the first time.?I told him that having a boss who seemed to be a "true adult" with a lot of personal ethics made the job compassionate in a post-pandemic world full of lies, a desire for personal fame, racism, and sexism. So, we now have half of the answers. I also made sure to say that I was in no way saying that this person was perfect. I doubt I would still be here if I had worked with a perfect person. Perfectionism would have stopped me from being creative and would have made me hate my job.?He was very interested. I went on to explain, but I think I was mostly talking to myself.?

For me, true adulthood has always meant owning my own stories, taking responsibility for my own decisions, and being free to imagine and experience what it means to be human without a constant need for professional success, without reckless arrogance, without fear of cherishing the most important relationships in my life, and without feeling ashamed of the things I regret. These might seem like very personal qualities that have nothing to do with how well the team members do their jobs. But I've learned in recent months from my own good experiences that "adult" leaders can help me keep my personal and professional lives separate, making sure that work doesn't invade my personal space. They are the ones who text you to know whether you are in a position to have a conversation if they call and they only call directly if it’s an emergency. Despite being the biggest support during your health crisis if you ever have any they would ask you whether you would be comfortable discussing your health updates if they had inquired. If you have children and if you ever decide to share any thoughts about your children, you will not find more excited and attentive listeners than them.

Similarly, when riches and money become the ends in themselves rather than a means to a goal in a community, then personal and professional integrity becomes meaningless. Honesty is something that has always been fundamental to human culture. However, being the epitome of honesty and truth in a time of peril might be the difference between life and death. Honesty and accepting responsibility for one's actions are two hallmarks of an employee that exemplifies high levels of integrity in the workplace. The emphasis is on principles rather than material gain.?Opportunities, pressure, and justification are the three prerequisites for every unethical conduct. The world after a pandemic provides all three, unfortunately. However, at times like these, a safe workplace may be created by leaders and supervisors who delve deeply into the essence of integrity and maintain high standards. But I have also seen that even very honest and ethical leaders sometimes fail to instill the same values across the organization.

But these supervisors and leaders are an absolute necessity for individuals like me who want to fall in love with their job every day and find that greatness in work without seeking greatness through their work.

#leadership #management #work #workplacewellbeing #integrity #adulthood #greatness