imapMyTeam Blog

How Do You Show-Up?

Learning and Growth is one of my favorite categories to follow on Twitter and it recently lead me to an article titled “The 6 Ways You Need To Show-Up At Work.”  The list included these suggestions:  dress the part, play the role, avoid BS, be candid, answer difficult questions and listen.  Okay, those make sense on some level, but we at iMap think there are really only two ways to show up at work that matter.

Your Team Player report tells you what these two possibilities are.  You can show up at work either in strength or in stress.   These are the visible, external behaviors that others see in you.  It is these behaviors that will be the basis by which others determine how you are showing up on the job.

When you are being most effective, it’s likely because you are using your strengths appropriately and operating in your usual behavior.  It’s also possible that you may actually be somewhat out-side your usual style or comfort zone because you’ve learned to adapt your behavior to the needs of the moment.  Either way, others love it when this version of you is who shows up.

On the other hand, it’s another story when stress strikes. Stress behavior is a counter- productive reaction and can result in damage to important relationships. When this person shows up at work, you lose the power of choice and your behavior will likely change to something that is viewed as far from positive by others. It causes meetings to go off track, projects to slow down, conflict begins and productivity drops.

When our visible behaviors are moving back and forth from our usual to stress reactions, we can appear to others as being inconsistent and unpredictable. I’m certain that none of our Tuesday Tip readers wants to show up as unpredictable! This Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pattern creates great confusion and causes other to be cautious in their interactions with us.

Using imapMyTeam on a regular basis will help ensure that the best version of you shows up much more often than then the reactionary version!  The positive, in-control you, rather than the out-of- control you also reinforces consistency and predictability – characteristics important to be able to build trust with others.

Dress right, avoid BS, listen and all of the things I read are ok – but none as powerful as self-awareness and self-management that comes from regular use of imapMyTeam.