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Congratulations President Trump

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With Tuesday’s overwhelming election of Donald Trump as President of the United States I decided to contemplate my own dissatisfaction with this choice.

Firstly, having had a number of arguments with pro-Trump individuals I now understand my-own feelings are not politically driven but rather based on personal behaviours and the values they represent.

Loud, Outspoken and Self Centred

For me, Presidents Trumps policies are not an issue.  Some I buy into, some I don’t, which is very similar to my views on most politicians.

Trump has a very strong personality and in that sense it is polarizing.  You either support him or you don’t but there is very little middle ground.

The foundations of this polarization most likely derive to a large extent from his brash behaviours.  Two of my own core personal values – everyone is important and say what you do and do what you say, don’t align with Trumps behaviours, by and large.

More than Politics

While I might be on-board (to some extent)with Republican policies my dislike of their current leaders public personality is intense. Unfortunately, I just don’t like him because of his personality and associated behaviours.

So, will he be a good leader of the United States for the next four years.  Possibly.  Will he be a great leader, I doubt it, simply because of his lack of empathy and humility.

Personally I have worked closely with many leaders over the years that displayed a lot of similar traits to President Trump and on the plus side, they accomplished many things – some good, some bad but shit got done.  And then it was over.

On the other hand I have also worked for leaders with high levels of empathy and humility.  They were largely trusted by the majority.  They always got things done but in a collaborative way and their accomplishments live on.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Listening to Others

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Meyer’s Briggs theory of personality types is founded on the baseline level of your tendency toward introversion or extroversion, and all points between.

If you are an introvert the biggest risk to your happiness involves listening to other people.  For extroverts, the opposite is true.  Socializing often involves two-way communication and for many introverts, these exchanges are full of action requests or complaints.

What Risk

Extroverts want to get involved and thoroughly enjoy the exchanges.  Listening is the doorway for them to interact and they welcome it.

For introverts,  listening represents a risk of creating the need for an outward interaction.  Being inward focused, based on their own mood and feelings, actively reacting to others is a chore.

This is not intended to impinge on others needs or their right to pontificate, it simply means the introvert does not desire to be part of it.

Playing Nice

Being culturally compliant while interacting with others requires effort.  Introverts, by their very nature, typically expend more energy on interpersonal interactions than extroverts.

Playing nice is hard for the introvert.  They strongly feel the need to conform to social norms but prefer introspection and so find it a lot of work to “be on”.

On the other hand, extroverts do not feel an overt concern for correct behavior and like the hyperactive child you sometimes wonder “Where is the off switch?”

Diversity

Fortunately, the diversity created by divergent personality traits – for example, introversion and extroversion are beneficial to everyone.

It is the diversity of personal behavior that makes it interesting for all.  Sameness leads to boredom, neither introverts nor extroverts are better and both add great value to the human continuum.

 

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Polarizing Personality

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The ability to unite or divide people just through the power of your personality, that is to become larger than life, are key attributes of those with a polarizing personality.

These individuals tend to attract followers who form a cult of personality around them.   Detractors, also form strong emotional opinions.  For those with a polarizing personality, there is typically no middle ground.  

Love ’em or Hate ’em

Polarization is about migration to one pole, negative or the other positive.  There is no middle. 

For some leaders or a well known public figures, using the sheer power of personality to capture a large group of supporters in agreement with their clear and usually absorbing views, is imperative.

The combination of characteristics or qualities forming their distinctive character drive support.  Forceful communication and clarity of purpose are hallmarks of their methodology. 

Good leaders or Bad

Polarizing personalities can be used to support a leaders agenda.  Some will view the agenda as good and some will be diametrically opposed.  Typically though there is little middle ground (i.e., it’s okay or I can live with that usually do not apply).

Leaders who leverage their personality to enable the exercise of power can be very effective but typically this approach is dictatorial and one-sided.  This means it is only sustainable while the leader continues to polarize a majority of the followers. 

Dissatisfaction with the pole (positive or negative) to which the populous is being driven ultimately ends the influence and the polarizing leader succumbs to defeat. 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Who are you?

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To truly understand who you are,  you must first understand how others see you.

This is not a riddle but rather intended to highlight the fact that whatever you think about your own personality, maturity or behaviour what really matters is the perspective of other people.

Knowing Yourself

Being aware of your habitual behaviours (your personality) can be valuable when your perspective on these behaviours matches that of the general population.

Simply put, how you perceive yourself is how you are perceived, ergo behavioural decisions you make are founded on an accurate base.

Unfortunately, the opposite can apply as well.  If your own behavioural assessment does not match that of those receiving the effects of your behaviour, adjustments you make to improve and thus enhance the way others view you, are based on false assumptions

In this case the impacts of your behaviours, and the changes you made to ensure positive impacts, most likely won’t lead to the results you expect/ hope for.

Validation

One of the most difficult things to achieve is an objective validation that your perception about what others think of you is accurate.  Anonymous web  surveys hosted by a disinterested third party can be very useful in this regard but this is not always a feasible option.

For me, this is where the skill of self awareness is really useful.  How you are perceived by others is telegraphed in hundreds of ways from body language, verbal retorts to just basic behaviours ( i.e., what others do or the absense of what they do)

Being sensitive to these signs and consciously analysing them all the time may require a little more effort than reviewing the results of an independent and anonymous survey, but it works.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Personality and Maturity

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Your personality, basically a word to describe your habitual behaviours, is believed to be formed as a result of both nature (neurological development) and nature ( the environment you grew up in)

In general the foundation of your personality, based on nature and nurture, is believed to be set by your early teens.  Your habitual behaviours can change over time but like habits in general, it is usually slow and difficult to do.

Maturity

Maturity decribes growth and advancement in your behaviour.  This is largely based on experience.  The behavioural changes you make as time goes by and you gain maturity can include impacts to your habitual behaviours (personality).

The way a person might typically behave in given situations have been studied and labled as personality types.  The level of conformity, efficiency and effectiveness of overall behaviour is typically used to gauge ones maturity.

While typically personality is considered set at a young age, as you grow older and mature in other behaviors so can your personality mellow and mature.  Personality and maturity can combine to create change.

Continuous Improvement

The point is, although your personality can be an underlying defining aspect of your core behaviour, as you mature it can and will change.  Continuous improvement of your overall behaviour is not only possible, it is desirable.

To coin an old television conmercial for a ladies cosmetic product, your not getting older, your getting better.  Don’t ever give up improving your behaviors, both those you interact with and those you will be interacting with, salute you for continual striving to behave better.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Filtering

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As we go through the days of our lives (sounds like a soap opera), each moment we are using our personal filters to translate and understand in formation.

I read a quote the other day that spoke to one of my own basic filters.  It made me think about filters in general and how they influence our interpretation of the world and thus our behavior.

The Quote

For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else.  –  Winston Churchill

Back to Filters in General

Filtering is highly individual.   A key to successful use of filters is self awareness.  Simply put,  if you understand how you filter things it enables you to put your behaviors into situational context and provides a frame for modifying how you interpret and thus react to incoming information.    (When a sentence starts with “simply put” you can almost be sure it isn’t).

The Optimism Filter

A good example of this is the optimism filter.  The over-used “Is the glass half full or half empty?” is a great summary of how this filter works.   The data (a glass with liquid in it) is the same for all observers, but how you interpret the level of liquid in the glass (i.e., positively or negatively) can be very dependent on your basic filter – optimism or pessimism.  Most interesting fact here is the interpretation of each filter is basically correct.

However, it is a bit more complex!

Overall this filtering framework covers far more than just the optimistic/pessimistic characteristics and for any given individual an integrated  myriad of filtering types are in play interacting in different ways.

Many of you will have at one point or another taken those simple questionnaires which are used to classify your personality type (e.g., Meyers Briggs, Birkman colors, and so on).  These personality categories are based on the most consistent outputs for that type – on the whole.  That is, in specific situations the combination of filters in that personality type tends to react consistently.  In essence this personality type defines your basic frame for filtering and reacting to your environment.

Understanding your filtering mix can help you shape your personal interactions,  for positive results.