Embrace Your Weirdness: “A great leadership resource”
By Shayne Hughes
What makes you weird is what sparks innovation.
In his humorous TEDx talk, LaL Academic Advisory Board member Dr. Martin Davidson, professor of leadership at University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, explores the challenges and benefits of embracing your ‘weirdness’.
Dr. Davidson shares his personal journey and professional research on how our identity and our need to fit in can hamper bringing our power and creativity to the world.
• If being your whole self, and bringing your full contribution, makes you look/feel weird to those around you — are you willing to go for it?
• If a colleague’s passion and different perspective makes him/her weird in your eyes — do you still listen and learn?
If your answer is sometimes ‘no’ to either of these questions — like it is for me — than Dr. Davidson challenges you to unpack what’s holding you back.
These people on the margins, who see the world differently, struggle with this tension. Those that have broken through their ‘weird’ barrier have often become society’s greatest resources for innovation … and we’ve all got it in us.
So, embrace your Weirdness! I’ll meet you on the other side…
As always, great job by Martin. I think this links up amazingly well with Shayne Hughes’ Huffing Post article “Generating Self-Discipline Without Willpower,” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shayne-hughes/self-discipline_b_2853162.html). Specifically, it is often hard to be Weird without the “emotional clarity” needed to push through the comfort barrier and “bring our fullness” to the table.
I’m inspired!
I hadn’t thought about the connection with emotional clarity, Nick. You’re absolutely right. That clarity helps us go through our fear of judgment (cf. image management).
Thanks.