Participant A8. Participant A8 is a male who works in the engineer community.
He finds the Federal government attractive from the standpoint of dedicated people
focused on a common goal. A8 learned early in his career that enrolling others through a
collaborative was far more effective than using a directive approach. He viewed his EI
through an incremental lens rather than a series of episodic events. EI and leadership
depend on relationship and credibility, which were crucial during opportunities in which
A8 lacked authority.
And most of them came in places where I either did not have authority to
do things or I didn’t have sufficient authority to get things done and
needed to get other folks enrolled. Needed to be able to work across boundaries. Need to make sure that people knew this was a collaborative
environment and that I was going to be open to them.
Working across boundaries inherently involved building effective relationships,
according to A8. Embedded in effective relationships is having integrity and
commitment.
I think the relationship is really important because it helps to get through
the initial conversations.
And so it was the trust we’d built up to have the initial conversations and
say ‘let’s try it.’ And then of course you have to followfollow-up with whatever you said you’d do because if you told people -through and
‘you’re going to be involved’ you got to have them involved or they’re
going to be perfectly justified in saying ‘well, that’s not what we were told
was going to happen.’
(^) A formative and enduring experience for A8 was observing a mentor who was
consistently genuine with others and who allowed others to influence decisions. Of note
to A8 was that the mentor’s EI complemented his technical prowess.
He had very strong personal connections and it wasn’t something that was
faked – it was something that was important to him and it was ‘jeez, I