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Must you always exhibit a ruthless fight to win mindset at your workplace? Everyday for us can be a merciless winner take all boxing match. The purpose of this article is to give one solid reason why working remote works well for corporate executives. If you want to skip to the bottom to read our solution to our predicament, please do so.
Ruthless fight to win mindset: Type A vs Type D Personalities
Congratulations! You belong to the high flyers club. But you say, not so fast. This job is a killer. Type A people exhibiting Type A traits traditionally proliferated among the top performing class of high achievers. Leading to high blood pressure, heart ailments, stroke and eventually early death. Simple Psychology provides this brief summary of character traits typically associated with Type A personalities:
- Competitive
- Time sensitive
- Hostile
- Aggressive
According to studies re-published in the National Institute of Health (NIH), people with Type A personalities aren’t the only ones prone to coronary heart disease. Ill health resulting from lowered immune systems due to chronic stress, tension and frustration a stressful job may bring.
Employees with Type D personalities have been found to have a poorer health prognosis than those with Type A. NIH suggests these behavioral traits held by people with Type D personalities:
- Distressed (expressed as fatigue, guilt and aggression)
- Negative affect (negative emotions, hostility, and poor self-concept)
- Socially inhibited (avoidance of certain behaviors and interactions)
What are some of the roles and unstated complex job requirements Type A personalities fulfill ?
Why do we mention Type D here on this telework website? Complex occupations, job roles and tasks can exert so much pressure as to make any employee exhibit Type D personality traits. Even Type A. What are complex jobs?
- forward facing (frequent client and public interaction),
- demand high cognitive loads (real time problem solving, critical thinking, debate and skills of persuasion), and
- require intensive resources to resolve that are often unavailable
Type A corporate executives have one of the most stressful jobs on planet earth!
What are some of the most stressful jobs for high pressured careers? Penn State University posed this question, generating these answers:
- Corporate Executives
- Surgeons
- Law Enforcement Officers
- Emergency Medical Technicians, Paramedics
- Air Pilots
- News Broadcasters
- Social Workers
- Event Planners
While the option to work from home 100% of the time, five days per week isn’t viable for many occupations listed above, hybrid working arrangements might pose a solution for some corporate executives, news broadcasters, social workers and event planners. Virtual teleconferencing has been adopted successfully by mental health service providers: psychologists, social workers and others. Want to read why remote work is good for the fierce corporate officer and manager?
To survive to see another day, top managers maintain their competitive edge with remote work
To survive to thrive, top performers must make consorted efforts to maintain their competitive edge. Why? No one else will help them do so. Some bosses can be threatened by their influence, stature in the company, and downright effectiveness. Their colleagues may not like to stand next to them for fear of comparison.
So Type As are often on their own. From a stereotypical perspective, hard charging Type As revel under intense, combative and argumentative situations where organizational goals are to be met regardless of the immediate fallout and secondary perils. In reality though, even the toughest Type A needs alone time to reflect upon the day (to do a personal after action plan to review what tactics taken were effective and what techniques were ineffective) renew and re-charge (deflect the negative energy of the day and absorb new positive energy from nature, sports, intimacy, and hobbies).
The last step? A true Type A super trooper always schedules alone time for resetting. Though we never will acknowledge it publicly. Respect must be maintained at all costs. What does resetting mean to a Type A corporate executive? It means intentionally reflecting upon the after action review and taking further action. Immediate, short term and long term to perform a reset. Either we reset to factory settings (our default management and communication style) or uninstall an older version of ourselves. Or install a more nuanced, informed, improved version based on the incidents that just occurred.
Remote work gives Type A corporate leaders time for mindfulness practice to reset
A shrewd business executive is always evolving. We are consciously striving to be. Yes. That was not an incomplete sentence. It is a concept related to mindfulness. But that is another topic for another article.
We are intentional in presenting our best selves each and every day regardless of the situation, resources and people around us. All eyes are often upon us. Another added pressure of the top ranked corporate professional.
Which gets us back to the Type D personality. One must be very careful in a world that is often unforgiving, spiteful and presents danger to personhood, livelihood, and financial standing.
Because of the general perception that Type As are ‘in it for themselves’ are pervasive throughout society. Because there are many haters and envious people who will do anything to knock a good person down, rather than take the effort to build themselves up. It is a perilous world where Type As can, if we are not careful, be beaten down in the workplace. To a pulp.
Where things are said that are not true. Where one could stand strong, with inner defiance, but with outer indifference leaving us defenseless to the naysayers. So we could, theoretically without spirituality, mindfulness and a strong sense of self; transform into a Type D personality. The antithesis of who we were designed and created to be.
Withdrawn. Unsure of oneself. Distressed at the workload, high emotional demands. Hands tied, cornered by detractors. No where to go (but down). And no one to offer supports. In short, ineffective. A sure, solid career k-i-l-l-e-r.
Remote work, then for the Type A personality can be a Godsend. If employed correctly. With fidelity. And with commonsense.
