5 mins
Discover your superpowers!
As part of our diversity and inclusion issue, business consultant Vivienne Braidwood looks at how overcoming adversity can lead to empowerment
We all have a story to tell regarding our experience of painful events. The ones that seem to stick tend to occur during childhood, perhaps because of how they shape us into who we are today.
As we get older, we inevitably experience new obstacles, failures, and painful events. While some of us stay stuck in the memory or trauma, others can positively transform themselves through overcoming these challenges. I like to think of this transformation as the development of new ‘superpowers’.
Let’s look closer at five superpowers and how they can make a positive difference to your career, business and working environment. Some of these skills can’t be taught and have been forged in the fires of your life. That’s what makes them so special. Like any superhero, you just need to become aware of these unique talents and decide how best to make use of them.
1. Empathy: The power of understanding others. While this doesn’t imply you can read their minds, it is the gift of being sensitive to what others are thinking and feeling,
2. Resilience: The power to bounce back from anything that happens to you, like having superhuman strength,
3. Emotional Intelligence: As incredible as telepathy, this superpower allows you to recognise, understand, and manage both your own emotions and the emotions of others,
4. Agility and Adaptability: The power to embrace change, uncertainty, and complexity quickly and confidently as opportunities for learning and improvement,
5. Effective Communication: The power of connection. This is a truly awesome power because when superheroes unite, they form a much stronger force together than apart.
While you may not have the ability to fly, to be invincible or to read people’s minds, the above is an awesome set of skills that can be just as incredible when recognised as such and applied in the right way.
Empathy: Studies show that adults who had experienced trauma in their early years tended to have higher levels of empathy than those who had not. This is because trauma increases attention to emotion, and environmental cues, and increases amygdala responsiveness (which involves emotional attentiveness). Imagine being able to shapeshift and step into someone else’s shoes. Empathy is the ability to emotionally understand what other people feel, see things from their point of view, and imagine yourself in their place. In a professional context, it allows you to connect with business partners, colleagues, clients, and customers on a deeper level. It helps you to understand their perspectives, concerns, and needs, fostering trust and meaningful relationships. You can more effectively navigate conflicts, build bridges, and create a positive work environment that fuels productivity and collaboration.
Resilience: Our personal and professional lives are filled with setbacks. I have witnessed the undeniable power of resilience, that is, the ability that humans have to adapt to, navigate, and even grow from life’s most painful events. Cast your mind back over the years and make a note of all the things you have bounced back from. At the time you may have doubted if and how you would make it through – but you did – you persevered and grew, time and time again. This is clear evidence that you have this superpower. You therefore have a high probability of being able to bounce back from future adversity even if you still don’t have faith in your abilities to do so. When you are confronted with your next challenge, think back on this exercise, re-evaluate your talents and welcome that challenge as an opportunity for even more growth. Know with certainty that you will come out of the other side stronger, wiser, and loving yourself and your superpowers a little more.
Emotional Intelligence: This superpower allows you to recognise, understand, process, express and engage with your feelings and those of others. It is one of the highest social skills a person can possess. By practising this skill, you encourage healthier relationships, defuse conflicts, and make smarter decisions. Agility and Adaptability: The speed and frequency of change in today’s world is sometimes mindboggling. Agility and adaptability are about being comfortable with the uncomfortable and seeing change and uncertainty as part of the journey of life and as opportunities for learning and improvement. Agility is the ability to quickly adapt or evolve in response to changing circumstances while adaptability is to embrace change; to be open-minded and flexible to change through a willingness to learn new skills or try different approaches. Imagine being able to effortlessly surf these never-ending waves of change – what a superpower indeed!
Effective Communication: Communication is more than just getting your point across; it’s about connection, understanding, and clarity. Good communication creates a sense of trust and engagement between people and within teams, building positive relationships, resolving conflict, and empowering individuals to contribute their ideas and best efforts. The superpower of effective communication contains a clear intention (the message), personalisation (tailored to the audience), active listening (check understanding), clear articulation, and non-verbal signals.
In today’s workplaces and businesses, the most valuable skills often go beyond technical knowledge.
Empathy, resilience, emotional intelligence, agility/adaptability, and effective communication are the intangible superpowers that can transform your career and your workplace. While this is not an exhaustive list, it hopefully gives you a kickstart as to how you can conduct a personal audit linking the challenges you have overcome in life with skills and superpowers you may have developed as a result. Identify which of these skills are in hot demand and are also useful in helping you to navigate your professional journey – once identified build on these skills through practice and reflection. This will include trial and error so be gentle with yourself. Just remember the various superheroes when they first discovered their talents were often clumsy and accidental in the use of those powers until they were able to hone them.
The key is to practice and keep on learning.
VIVIENNE BRAIDWOOD Vivienne Braidwood is a senior leader, business consultant and strategist. She is passionate about helping people, teams, departments, and organisations drive transformational change in culture, diversity, equity and inclusion.