The Nature of Leadership and Career

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The Nature of Leadership and Career, is a weekly newsletter where I provide 1 illustration and ~3 ideas to help you connect to your career, leadership, or work journey in a more natural way.

Today at a glance

• Illustration of the week

  - The time irony of negative events

• Launches

  — Bookclub - guest appearance by the author!

• The Nature of Career

  - Why does the bad stuff stick more easily?

  - How to spend more time reflecting on what went right

• Gem of the week

  - Organizational Savvy course

Illustration of the Week

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Women Wonder Book Club kick-off

We had our first-ever book club session last Wednesday and were super excited to chat with the author at the end of the session. You can read more about it here.

🗓 The next session will be on March 27 and it’s a bring any book / article / podcast you are learning from to discuss with the group.

Why does that bad stuff stick more easily?

Maybe this has been you:

• After presenting at work, you received six pieces of positive feedback and one criticism. How much time have you spent dwelling on that one negative comment?

• In your performance review, you were praised by your boss, peers, and team, but there were a few areas labeled as "room for improvement." How much time did you spend analyzing the positive feedback compared to the areas for growth?

• You just finished a job interview. You are unsure about how it went. You play it back over and over in your mind and all that you remember are the things you “did wrong” or could have said better. 

We all react like this due to negativity bias. 

Negativity bias is thought to be an evolutionary survival mechanism that helps us stay safe by making us pay more attention to potential dangers while exploring our surroundings. (Vaish, Grossman, Woodward, 2008)

If you use negativity bias in a time-boxed way to review negative information, learn from it and move on. Great!

But for most of us, we dwell for far too long on negative outcomes.

The events and feedback play back in our minds over and over. 

How do we spend more time reflecting on what went right?

Last week, I had a presentation that I felt went well.

When my husband asked why I thought so, I didn't just brush it off like I normally would. 

Instead, I decided to talk more with him about what I did well and why.

We often focus on the negative to avoid making the same mistakes again, but we rarely take the time to appreciate and learn from our successes. 

While there are formal methods like retrospectives and Appreciative Inquiry for this, we often overlook it in casual conversations or personal reflections.

So here's my invitation to you:

• The next time someone asks you "How did it go?"; or

• Right after you receive feedback, a performance review, or finish a presentation, speech, or interview, ask yourself: 

What went right? 

• Spend more time than usual talking or writing about the positive aspects. 

• Be specific about what you did to make things go well.

• Time yourself on how long you focus on the positive.

The aim isn't to eliminate the negativity bias, as it serves a useful purpose. 

Instead, the goal is to boost self-efficacy by making our successes stickier and reinforcing our beliefs about our abilities.

Take extra time to reflect on and analyze the positive aspects. 

For a new habit. Change the record playing your mind.

Whenever you’re ready here are 3 ways I can help

#1 Gain clarity and confidence in your career transition

#2 Join the free weekly Career Soul Sessions for women in tech and sustainability. A safe space to share your thoughts, and feelings on all things career.

#3 Follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram for more Career + Leadership tips to help you thrive.

Gem of the week

My friend Sheril Matthews is an amazing coach and advisor for technical experts.

If you are on the pathway to promotion and feel that you hate politics or don’t know “how to play the game” then have a look at his upcoming course on Organizational Savvy.

You can sign up with this link that gives you 20% off.**

**I only recommend people, products, and processes I know or have experienced without any monetary affiliate benefit.