People who stay true and shine

Tailspins from global financial woes have countries struggling to regain stable economic footings. Full recovery is far off and requires varied steps, but early moves involve industries and governments alike searching for efficiencies, paring budgets, dropping services and product lines, and cutting jobs.

At times like these, you’ll find employees react by evolving into one of the following four characters:

1. the ostrich – those who adopt this head-in-the-sand response believe that as long as they ignore the situation it doesn’t really exist
2. Chicken Little – apart from spreading rumours and cynicism in a sky-is-falling way, poultry tend to accomplish little more than dampen morale and play the martyr  
3. the fairy-tale villain – colleagues who never pulled their weight before suddenly seem busy and engaged, but then their self-protectionism becomes obvious as they kiss butt, throw adversaries (anyone at all) under the proverbial bus, manipulate people and situations, and seek out any and all opportunities to survive (think Gaston from “Beauty and the Beast” or Fairy Godmother in “Shrek”) –  beware the nefarious ones
4. the genuine doer – the coping mechanism for these hardy souls is to do more of the same by rolling up their sleeves, sharing information and resources, helping one another out, displaying integrity and authentic leadership, showing accountability, and being productive (or as they say here in Atlantic Canada: “get er done”)    

How you handle stress and uncertainty speaks volumes about who you are at your core. Suppress any distracting ostrich, Chicken Little and villain tendancies, and focus on your inner doer.

I’m fortunate to work with many people who fall into the genuine-doer category. They make the workplace both bearable and enjoyable in tough times, but then again, that’s what they do when all is well too. And that’s because they stay true to who they are, they shine and they’re

      AWESOME!