Why it is essential to show your work

Showing your work is one of the topics we discussed this past weekend at the second bonus webinar held for all the students who have already signed up for the upcoming Pradeepa leadership development school.?

The purpose of the school is to help you become a thriving leader and enable significant career growth and higher levels of income.?

Some of the reasons shared by the students on what is stopping them from showing their work more openly are

1. I have a lot to share, but my lack of courage prevents me from sharing.
2. I am not the type of personality who openly shares, even though I do many exciting things.
3. I feel shy to share.
4. What would be the benefit of my sharing, or how would people benefit from what I have to share?
5. What would people say if what I am sharing needs to be improved?
6. I have an idea, but it still needs to be perfect for sharing so I will keep it to myself.
7. I fear negative consequences and will not put myself out there; it will be demotivating.
8. I am figuring out what to share.
9. It feels like boasting.
10. There is already so much information and posts out there, so why bother?
11. Level of comfort: I share with selective people I am comfortable with, especially close friends or family with whom I feel safe.
12. It's terrifying.?
13. Ego: I have great things to say but will not share with others. Why should I? They will not get it.?

We talked about how judgment plays a vital role in preventing our ability to share our work. Judgment here is two parts- judging oneself and fear of judgment from others. For example: When we are afraid of negative comments or lack the courage to share our work mainly comes from judgment.?

We also discussed the consequences of not showing our work, successes, and failures as leaders to our team members. The direct result is earning the trust of our team members. People will relate to their leaders only when they see their leader as someone human- who has made mistakes along the way along with their accomplishments and are humble enough to admit those mistakes and openly talk about their learnings. So as a leader, sharing our learning journey, successes and failures are equally important as they are both parts of the same equation of life. That is why many leaders share their journey more openly these days.?

We talked about the importance of our online profiles reflecting the successes we acquire throughout our careers and life and representing our journey to get to the achievements.?

Here are some major takeaways from the session regarding showing the work.?

1. People who are willing to put themselves out there, show their work, and influence others are the ones who rise in their careers, even if there are more qualified people for the job. And the people who kept themselves in the background mostly ended up implementing the ideas handed to them.
2. We discussed a misunderstanding showing your work means exposing every detail about our lives online. We talked about how to share without oversharing and what it means.?
3. We also discussed how to create clarity regarding what our online presence will represent and what it will not. Having clarity will help us avoid topics or posts we are not comfortable discussing or writing about in the first place.?
4. Students talked about unarticulated values leading to missed promotions or career growth when others did not know about their superpowers and strengths.
5. We discussed that "personality" is something we have acquired over time in our teens, and we don't have to define ourselves as the persona we created many years ago. We can design and recreate any personality we want. //Idea inspiration from Steve Chandler's Reinventing Yourself.?
6. The shelf life of any post is 3 seconds. People scroll through stuff so fast that the crappy post will not be in people's minds because they would have moved on. And take away the pressure if we go for the crappy version in the first place.
7. Showing your work and articulating helps you gain your career capital. //Idea from Cal Newport's book, Be so good they can't ignore you.?
8. We discussed finding our unique aspects and using that to express ourselves. We had an analogy expert and product expert, baker and coach, chef and leader, multi-potentialite, and data expert among some of the talents in the school.?

Every learning has an action associated with that. The students all committed to taking small steps in showing their work and learning journey online and at work. Two students partnered to write an article jointly.?

If you want to take your leadership skills and career to the next level and grow tremendously, this school is definitely for YOU. Please feel free to reach out to me. There are only TWO spots left for the school.?