Do not force a square peg into a round hole
/ Blog
All professional roles involve improvement of one’s own weaknesses. Equally important, however, is to recognise the areas that hold little potential for growth or change. Not managing to perform well in a job may be due to the fact that you do not have innate strengths to carry out the tasks designated to you. No matter how hard you try, a square peg will never fit into a round hole.
It is essential to recognise what kind of development is worth striving for. It is almost impossible to perfectly achieve characteristics that are contrary to your own, natural tendencies. Research as well as practice have shown that, with limited resources, investment in existing strengths always leads to better results. A shot-putter will not turn into a winning sprinter, even with hard training.
What should you do if you end up in a professional role that does not suit your personality?
A wrong role in working life may lead to burnout
We seem to be convinced that when it comes to working life, we need to learn the hard way. We all need to do enough menial odd jobs to teach us to cope in ‘real’ working life, even though the tasks may be unsuitable to us. However, with increasing experience, it becomes evident that we do not always master the roles that we come across in working life. We can try to fit ourselves in them – sometimes with success!
We may begin our careers playing a role that is not quite the right one for us but continuing to persistently play our part will not make us happy and motivated in the long run.
It shows a kind of strength to be able to be different from your true self for a while. Stretching the limits of your own personality temporarily is beneficial as abilities like that are necessary in almost all positions and lines of work.
It is, however, quite detrimental for you if the exceptional circumstances gradually become normal and you get stuck in an unfamiliar role. Falsification is considered to be one of the factors that explain burnout. It refers to a situation in which you continuously have to do the wrong things, eventually leading to distortion of personality. When the contradiction between your personality type and professional role is especially strong, the situation is stressful to everyone, regardless of natural tendencies.
Weaknesses can be strengths in certain situations – and the other way around
Our personality type is a part of our identity, and all our characteristics have both good and bad sides to them. Working life does not always treat well those who struggle to stay inside the box. They are, however, extremely good at handling chaotic situations in which they can make their own rules.
Social roles may be disastrously stressful to introverts who like to withdraw from the centre of attention. On the other hand, these people produce carefully thought-out deliberations and presentations if they are given the chance to work alone or in small groups. Low authority people prefer their fellow employees to be colleagues rather than superiors and any attempts to micromanage them may turn out to be an utter failure.
To summarise, the only thing that matters in working life, too, is the personality designated to us by biology. We should all be able to choose our career to suit our true self.
Mastering technology and emotions
In working life, we confront increasingly multidimensional problems that require us to have a variety of characteristics and capabilities. Among the most important are the ability to adjust to and act in changing circumstances as well as the ability to show self-direction, empathy and emotional leadership.
With constant advancement in technology, it is great to notice how person-related skills are increasingly emphasised in working life. Human competence and different personality traits will be appreciated higher than ever before. Even better, the above-mentioned abilities can be adopted regardless of one’s own personality type and temperament.
The actions of leaders and superiors play an important role in encouraging employees to start tending to their talents. Their role is of key significance regardless of the personality type of the person in question. Instead of trying to push people into predetermined rounds and squares, we could celebrate each different strength and harness it for the best possible use. That way, everybody will win.
We get our best shot for success in working life by listening to ourselves and learning to recognise the things that we genuinely enjoy, are good at and value. We should set the right goals for ourselves. Instead of trying to be someone else, we should become a better version of ourselves. Believing in what we do takes us a long way.
Three thoughts for self-improvement
- Refine your strengths so that they become attractions that help you succeed and develop further.
- Work on you weaknesses to the extent that they do not hamper your performance.
- Success and well-being that come with strengths help you to cope with your weaknesses.