Quick Win: Why you should stop bringing your 'whole self' to work

There’s a popular belief today that it’s healthy and empowering to bring your 'whole self' to work. But what if we’ve taken it too far?

Shelley Johnson is a renowned leadership coach, columnist for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and the host of top-ranking podcast This Is Work.

We sat down to discuss a potentially controversial view on ‘bringing your whole self to work’ and the impact of oversharing.

Shelley and I share:

-         What to do instead of oversharing at work to have a positive impact

-         Why "bringing your whole self to work" might not be the best idea and what you should do instead

Listen to the full interview with Shelley here.

Connect with Shelley via Linkedin, Instagram, Boldside’s Instagram or go to the website for Boldside.

 

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Credits:

Host: Amantha Imber

Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's a popular belief today that it's healthy and empowering
to bring your whole self to work, But what if
we've taken it too far. Shelley Johnson is a renowned
leadership coach, founder of Bold Side, and the host of
This Is Work. In our chat, Shelley and I offer
an alternative strategy that you might want to try instead

(00:21):
of bringing your whole self to work every day. Welcome
to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and
strategies for optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber.

(00:43):
On today's quick Win episode, we go back to an
episode from the past and I pick out a quick
win that you can apply today. Shelley and I discussed
a potentially controversial opinion on why bringing your whole self
to work might not be the best idea and what
you should be doing at work instead of oversharing when
you have a stressful situation.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
I'm just going to put a little like caveat because
this could be like, this could be one of the
things where I'm going Will people like this? Will people
get offended? They might. I'm just going to step into
it and not be afraid of what people think. For
a sec. I mean tying with this idea of like
bringing your whole self to work, and I say this
with care, like bringing your whole self to work is

(01:29):
different to bringing your best self to work, And I
just want to sit with that for a second. Go okay.
And I feel even nervous saying this out loud because
I feel like it's countercultural because we've talked for so
long about bringing your whole self to work, like everything
the good, but the bad, the ugly, And I think
there's like elements of that that are good, but I

(01:50):
think there's elements of that that are unhelpful, like and
I kind of feel like what I would love to
see is like bring your best self to work. Like
that doesn't mean you kind of bad days, that doesn't
mean you can't be real and authentic and say, you
know what, today I'm just really struggling. But what sometimes
I feel when people talk about like being super super

(02:12):
like authentic, is it's almost a license to be a jerk.
I often hear from teams and leaders that I work with, Hey,
like people walk in and they're really really not in
a good headspace and it just affects the whole team
and that's the emotional contagion. We know that, Like, the
emotional contagion is a real thing. Like you walk in
and you're really negative, Well, that's going to affect the

(02:35):
whole team, just like when you walk in and you
bring a positive kind of energy or a level of optimism.
Not talking about toxic positivity. Please hear me, that's not
what I'm saying. But I'm just toying with this, and like,
I don't know if I have like the direct answer,
but it's just been something I've been wrestling with. What
do you think as you're hearing that, I feel free
to challenge me.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
To be like, oh my god, Shelly, like you're talking
my language. Something I've thought so much about over the
last few months because because I've been having such a
hard time at work. But I'm a leader in the
business and you know, I'm talking to Inventim's clients every
day about these kinds of you know, challenges. I feel

(03:17):
like bringing your whole self to work is terrible advice.
I love that idea of bring your best self to work.
And something that happened to me is end of June,
I hit the you know, the absolute closest that I've
ever come to to burn out, So I think I
was there. I had all the symptoms that had been

(03:37):
building up for a while, and my general principle there
is just wait till the emotions have kind of healed
or the you know, the wound has scarred over, and
then I will you know, write and talk about it.
And so something I heard a little bit later on
from my team is that there was a member of
my team that said, why didn't Amantha tell us that

(03:58):
she was burnt out at the time? You know, I
think to this person, it felt like, shouldn't we all
be comfortable like sharing those things? And I think, you know,
maybe it indicated that there was like I don't know,
maybe like it's just not comfortable being vulnerable or something
like that. And I had quite a strong reaction to
that because I thought like, if I would have shown

(04:18):
up and brought my whole self to work, I would
have been a nightmare to work with. No one would
have wanted to be in a meeting with me. It
would have been terrible. And I deliberately thought like I
need to bring kind of conjure up the best possible
self that I can, because you know, we're all feeling,
you know, overworsh like none of us are at our
best right now, and the last thing that my team

(04:42):
needed at that point in time was a leader who
was showing up as burnt out, even though that was
my internal experience. And I really agree like the way
that anyone shows up, but particularly how leaders shows up.
It's like, emotions are, you know, highly contagious.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
And when you are the founder and a leader in
a business, your team live in the wake of your
energy levels. So it's like they live in the wake
of that, and yeah, they want to support you, and
they want that vulnerability. And I think there is absolutely
that need for vulnerability. And I love to do like
a side by side comparison between vulnerability and oversharing. And

(05:20):
because I'm a verbal processor, so I love I love
to share all the things I have noticed in myself
when I'm over sharing versus when I'm being vulnerable, it's
when the issue is too close to the time that
I'm experiencing. Like you said, the emotions are too raw,
I'm not actually navigating it in a kind of healthy way,
and so to share that with the full team is

(05:42):
not going to be helpful versus two months down the
track where you're like, you know what, I've processed this,
I've reflected on what got me there, and I can
openly share this in a useful way while still being vulnerable,
still building trust, but knowing that the oversharing thing doesn't
build trust, it actually undermines trust.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
I love that idea between like what's vulnerability versus what's
over sharing. Something I think about is if I'm making
the choice to be vulnerable or share something that is
quite personal about my experience, I always think, like to
what end? Like why am I doing this? Like, and
if I'm just doing this to be seen, I think

(06:23):
do it with a friend or my partner or something
like that. And it's something I have to check myself with.
It's like if I'm sharing something that is about a
hard experience or something vulnerable that I've gone through, and
I think, you know, part of I guess, like the
way I see my own brand and my purpose, if
you like, is to give people really practical tips and

(06:44):
insights that will make their you know, work in Bracket's
life better than if I'm sharing. There needs to be
a purpose to that.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, when you're in the oversharing mode, it's really focused
around self versus when you're in the vulnerability mode, it's service.
So if I think about what you do when you're
like sharing a couple of months afterwards, Look, I was
really the closest I've ever been to burnout. It's been
the toughest year I've ever had. Here's what I've learnt
through it. It becomes less about self and more about service,

(07:15):
and that to me is a huge difference. And when
we're sharing with the team, I think we can say
things like, Hey, I am really struggling. I'm probably not
in the space to talk about it right now because
I don't know how helpful it'll be, But when I'm ready,
I'd love to kind of unpack it with you and
the team being okay with that.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
I hope you enjoyed this quick win with Shelley. If
you'd like to listen to the full interview, you can
find a link to that in the show notes. If
you like today's show, make sure you get follow on
your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.
How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of
the Warrangery People, part of the Cooler Nation