My working style is intense. Here’s why I’m not trying to change it
Confession: Recently, I’ve felt insecure about my working style. I’ve struggled between feeling pressure to adapt to the styles of my team and staying authentic to the style that I know works best for me.
Let’s back up a bit.
As you've probably seen me mention, the team has been taking turns traveling with me to in-person events this year, and it’s been awesome. Not only do we get to spend quality time together, but I feel more supported on the road. It also gives the team a chance to meet our clients and see firsthand the difference our work makes.
And . . . our time on the road has also magnified the differences between us, especially when it comes to our working styles. As a remote team, most of the work we do happens independently and asynchronously, so being together for days at a time gives us a real glimpse of how we each work.
My style can best be described as fast-paced. According to CliftonStrengths, my top strength is Activator, which means I like to get things done. I’m most productive when I travel because I hardly have any meetings, and being in new spaces fuels my creativity. I strive to use big and small pockets of time—on the plane, at the airport, at the hotel—to put things into motion so that we can continue to make progress. The feeling of inaction or having tasks hanging over me overwhelms me, and I don’t like to work in the evenings, so that means my pace during the day can be a little intense. But I like to lean into that intensity because working this way allows me to show up at my best and be fully present when I am with our clients. It frees me from carrying that extra mental load and thinking about work piling up. It also ensures that I have time to disconnect and relax in the evenings and that I can unplug and be present with my family when I get home. I’ve learned all of this from years on the road and feel I have finally found the style that works best for me.
And yet . . .
When the team started traveling with me, I started to doubt myself. I saw just how differently they approached their work, and it made me question whether I should shift my working style when I’m with them.
First, there was Cheyenne, our Chief of Operations. Her style is the most similar to mine because her role is operational and involves a lot of moving parts. When we traveled together, she seemed to appreciate the time we spent working so that she could stay on top of things. But there was a clear difference in our intensity: While I’m perfectly fine with working in my hotel room for hours on end, she would prefer shorter sprints and more breaks for relaxing.
And then there’s Rachel, our Chief of Content. She has a very different role than I do and a very different working style as a result. Her role is almost entirely creative: She helps me write and edit blog posts (including this one!) and create content for our clients. In order for her to do her best work, she needs to have a significant amount of uninterrupted time and to be in the right environment so that she can get in “flow.” Unlike what is possible in my role, Rachel has the ability to frontload nearly all of her work and get it done before she leaves home to travel with me. She doesn’t have the day-to-day tasks or emails piling up like I do. I’ve learned that when Rachel is on the road, she really values unplugging, exploring whatever city we’re in, and focusing her energy on supporting me.
Of the two, it’s Rachel’s working style that has challenged me the most. A great example is our trip to San Diego earlier this year: I was excited to have a lot of time in my hotel room to get some work done because I had a family trip coming up and wanted to be able to unplug for it. Rachel, on the other hand, was so excited to have time in San Diego because she used to live there. After the main event was over, she wanted to explore the hotel, relax in the hot tub, and visit some of her old favorite spots nearby. Had I been alone, I would have spent all of my free time in the hotel working, but at times, I felt pressured to turn off work and explore with Rachel, which overwhelmed me. And at times, she felt pressured to work with me instead of taking a break, which I am sure overwhelmed her.
But neither of us spoke up about it. I didn’t speak up because I didn’t think it was feedback I needed to give; I thought that it was a growth moment for me. I thought I needed to adapt my style to be less intense. So for the next couple trips, I tried to be better about adapting my style to Rachel’s and Cheyenne’s. But internally, that caused me a lot of angst and overwhelm. It made me question if I had made the right decision to invite the team on the road with me.
I decided to bring up the topic at our quarterly review. I posed it as a question: I wanted to know what the team thought about my working style and if they felt I was too intense while on the road.
Rachel was the first to speak up. She immediately said yes: She thought it was actually her role to encourage me to explore more and work less while on the road. Cheyenne disagreed. She said that she didn’t think my intensity was too much, and she understands from her own role why I like to work the way I do. She said that the most important thing for her was that it worked for me.
I was really stuck. I didn’t know what the right answer was. Was I supposed to adapt while being on the road with Rachel and then be closer to my natural style when with Cheyenne? Was I thinking about this all wrong? Both acknowledged my style as being intense. Was it the team’s job to help me work less?
And then Monique, our Chief of Growth, spoke up. Monique hasn’t been traveling with us this year because she’s the mom of a toddler and is pregnant with another little babe (who will be here any day!). Monique is often our voice of reason in conversations like these. She was able to pierce right through to the disconnect I was feeling in my gut: She felt that it was no one’s role to change my style and that no one needed to adapt their style to mine, either. She made the point that we each know what we need and that we need to own our boundaries and speak up for our needs in order to be at our best on the road. We need to respect the individual needs and the ideal balance of work and unplugging that we each have, even if that looks different than the person we are traveling with.
Of course. The answer was for all of us to be . . . authentic.
And so far, so good: On our most recent trip, Rachel and I were together almost a whole week for two different in-person events. In that time, there were afternoons where she went off to explore while I stayed at my hotel and worked. She drove us the 3.5 hours to our next stop, and the whole time, I worked independently while Rachel jammed out. I didn’t work in the evenings and treasured spending time with Rachel exploring different restaurants and having meaningful time together. Through it all, I was able to be present and all-in because my work was done and I could truly unplug. It was a wonderful trip for both of us. Not that our other trips haven’t been great, but this time, neither of us felt the need to adapt or veer from our authenticity.
I hope this helps you think about your own style and how you can own it! Remember, the only person who knows what you need is YOU. Living in our authenticity doesn’t mean we are inflexible and unwilling to support others. It means we appreciate the differences we have, we respect those differences without seeking to change them, and we are willing to advocate for what we each need to be at our best.
How powerful and freeing when we can do that.
Big hugs,
