Who are you?

Turns out, who are you is not an easy question to answer.

There are multiple dimensions to who you are.  There is who you think you are. There is who others perceive you to be.  How you are perceived may depend entirely on context, where people know you from. You are most likely a different person to your friends then you are to you co-workers and you are probably also a different person to your lover.  You are also probably different at different stages in your life and perhaps at different times of the day, depending on what you ate or didn’t eat and how that is affecting your brain processes at any given moment.

For those of us who aspire to lead, we have to answer this in at least 2 dimensions.  Who do we wish to be, for ourselves. What are our personal ethics and what sort of behavior are we ok with and what isn’t. This helps us resist temptation when it presents itself.

We also need to know what sort of impact we want to have on others. I have written before that it isn’t enough to want to do good. Your reputation may not hinge on who you actually are, but rather on who you are perceived to be. This is especially true for people who put themselves out there to be leaders.

Being a good leader, because it depends on perception, requires you to perform as a leader would.  This doesn’t mean being inauthentic. It means understanding that presentation matters and taking the steps necessary to make sure your presentation is consistent with your core values as a person.

Some leaders fake it. Their presented self is a lie and doesn’t jive with who they really are.  However, the good leaders are ones whose personal and professional lives are consistently ethical and visionary and rational and hardworking and fearless.

Don’t be afraid to wear your ethics on your sleeve. Being open about who you are personally, helps people understand who you aspire to be as a leader. This is where the fearlessness comes in. Most of us are quiet about our ethics and values. Those are personal to us. For leaders, they need to be explicit which means you need to perform your ethical values publicly for them to be understood.

Will this protect you from attack? Of course not. Unethical leaders who lie to gain advantage will lie about you if it helps them. But being clear about who you are and who you aspire to be as a leader, will help you confront and take on the challenges that come with being a leader.

Learn more about humanistic management with these courses.

• Principles of Humanistic Leadership - https://humanistlearning.com/?p=2237
• Planning for Personal Success - https://humanistlearning.com/planforpersonalsuccess/

Be the person you want to be

Who do you want to be? Why aren’t you that person already?

All of us have an internal image of the person we are. I’m a 12 year old geek girl who somehow inhabits a 50 year old women’s body. I’m always surprised when I find out I’m the adult in the room.

Beyond that I like to think of myself as a compassionate, loving, interesting person. I’m not always this person. Sometimes I am. Sometimes I am not.

I find that the closer the real me is to the me I imagine myself to be, the happier I am. I suspect this is true of most people. To be happy, I need to make an effort to be the ideal version of me, even when it’s difficult to do so.

So who do you imagine yourself to be? What are you doing to make sure that you are that person most of the time. Even when it is difficult and you are stressed?

I find that practice helps. Reminding myself when I am frustrated that aspire to be a compassionate loving interesting and interested person helps me to manifest those qualities when I need them most.

Embrace your ideal you. Remind yourself often of who you want to be. And actively choose to be that person in times of stress. You’ll be glad you did.

Who am I?

Finding an answer to this most important question is a quest worth taking.

Who am I?  That is one of those questions that is deceptively simple, yet has no easy answer. I am complex.

Paul Creedon, the Practical Humanist, wrote a great post about this, talking about the process of creating identity – see it here http://thepracticalhumanist.blogspot.com/2012/12/identity.html  It is a lovely peice.

I like that he makes the answer to this question more about the journey to finding an answer, than it is about the answer itself. He is more concerned with how he approaches the journey than he is with the fact that who he is is constantly changing.  I think that is an excellent way to approach this basic existential question.

For me, my practice of humanism starts with the question, not who am I? But rather, who do I really want to be? Now, in this current situation and in the future.  Who I am matters, but who I want to be matters more.

This is why it is a journey. A journey that never ends – or a never ending story – love it. And this is why I like my identity as a Humanist so much. It’s not that I have a set dogmatic idea of who I am. It is that I remind myself that I want to be the best human I can be requires me to constantly challenge myself to do and be better. And I find that process immensely satisfying even if it is never complete.