What's Your Work Armor?
A few years back we worked with an amazing client who was transitioning from the world of Broadway costume building to the world of robotics (yes, we do have the best job in the world).
We were talking with her about how navigating some particularly toxic work environments had led her to brace physically in order to protect herself. This physical tension felt like it was holding her together, but it was getting in the way of her ability to show up with the vibrancy and charisma that was our experience of being with her.
But armor goes beyond our physical patterns of tension.
The fact is this: work DOES STUFF to us. The world we live in does stuff to us. The messages we hear about who we’re supposed to be and how we’re supposed to act in order to succeed do things to us. Meanwhile, our brains keep doing what they do best: protecting us. We adapt to survive.
As we adapt to survive, we develop ways of being, acting, and communicating that we hope will give us the results that we want. Along the way, many of us have an uncomfortable realization:
Surviving is not the same thing as succeeding.
Sometimes the habits we build bring about exactly the success that we want . . . but when they don’t, it can feel impossible to identify a different way. This is especially true when the threat that we developed protection for exists at a systemic level: Racism. Sexism. Homophobia. Ableism. Or just plain old toxic work culture.
We all need some kind of armor.
Armor is not a bad thing. It’s not a character flaw. The problem that we encounter with a lot of our clients is that their armor—physical, emotional, mental, or social— is there for their protection, but may not be helping them move toward where they want to go.
Over our years of working with our brilliant, beloved clients, we started noticing patterns. And because at heart, we’re artists and storytellers, we gave those patterns names — archetypes. We meet these people all the time. We ARE these people. We see ourselves in these archetypes too — and you probably recognize yourself in more than one category!
The Perfectionist who is sick of checking every box and still not getting where she wants to go.
The Chameleon whose skills of adaptation and accommodation have left her blending into the wallpaper.
The Performer whose costume of poise and polish is starting to feel like a straight-jacket.
The Introvert who’s sick of playing “loudest voice wins” and wants to lean into her unique strengths.
The Volcano with the strength and rock-steady presence who can handle anyone and anything, but who, under the surface, is ready to blow.
The Imposter who KNOWS they need to step into their fear to make the impact they want to make but can’t seem to get past the negative voices in her head.
And here’s where we want to put a few important stakes in the ground:
There is no one right way to “do” communication. There is no correct way to “speak like leader”. Striving to imitate some nebulous cultural model of leadership or executive presence—or even imitate the most successful person in your office—is a losing battle. Two people taking the same advice will have different results, because we communicate AS INDIVIDUALS but WITHIN CONTEXT.
You have a much wider palette of tools and expressions available to you than you know. You might even be using them more than you realize already . . . after all, you got this far, right? You have spent your life adapting to your context—human beings are great at this.
So: if we accept that there’s no one way to get this right . . . AND we accept that we have an almost infinite variety of choices at our disposal when we allow ourselves to think and feel and experiment beyond our current habits (especially those habits we developed simply to survive), we can start talking about agency.
The ability to see the choices you have available to you and then make a choice is powerful.
We want this power for you!
It starts with a little bit of self-knowledge. We need to evaluate our current armor to see if it’s still serving us, or if it’s time for an upgrade . . . or to throw it out entirely!
If you’d like to know more about your work armor, take the What’s Your Work Armor quiz here.
We’ll send you your results, along with a few tools to add to your toolbox . . . because your voice, your body, and your ideas deserve to take space in the world.