My "speak up or sell out" moment

I've been thinking a lot about the "Authenticity" chapter of our curriculum this week. A glaring example of this concept came up in my job, and it threw me into a career-existential crisis. Decisions were being made at the executive level that would shape my work, and the direction of the organization, for the next year and possibly beyond. When I first learned about them, I tried very hard to fully understand what might have been driving the decision-making process and really get my head around what it meant for my team and for me, personally. After several internal deliberations, I found myself very conflicted.

I realized very quickly that the work I do is very much driven by my personal mission and values. It's much more than just a job, and my role as a leader is both to help others believe deeply in what it is I'm working toward and also to help them connect to that mission and set of values in order to find a way to make a difference.

I was encouraged by my boss (someone I regard as an amazing leader and mentor) to stand up for what I believed in and spend a little bit of my professional/social capital to get my point across to people who could change the direction of the ship. Her advice was to stick to the facts, trust that logic and sound values were on my side, and try to keep unnecessary emotion out of it as much as possible. That last part was pretty challenging given the deep-seated feelings I had about the issues at hand.

In the end, my point was well heard by the decision-makers and I felt tremendous resolve from choosing to speak up.