Christian Farlin - A Work in Progress

Christian Farlin
Always Learning, Always Improving.
I am motivated to master a diverse set of business and legal interdisciplinary skills to effectively serve
others in both private and public sectors. To achieve my ultimate goal of serving others, I am constantly
improving a multifaceted professional identity to effectively communicate with business professionals,
constituents, and public officials. I appreciate the roles that my colleagues have played in evaluating my
professional persona—as their feedback will help me better achieve my goals.

Dissecting Three Personalities Tracking Communication Preferences

The PeopleStyles survey assigns social styles to help business
professionals understand how they operate in the professional world.
I am a driver— a confident visionary focused on how
to lead my team to the “big picture” end goal.
I am an analytical professional who utilizes
many types of data to determine how the “big
picture” is achieved.
I am expressive—a charismatic force who
effectively translates my ideas to my audience
and motivates them to take action.
I agree with the 60% of my colleagues who said that I am a driver. I am
surprised that 40% of my colleagues indicated that I am expressive
instead of analytical. I concluded that my ability to employ characteristics
of all three personality types designates me as a “Swiss-army knife
professional” who uses interdisciplinary approaches to solve problems.
The Culture Map survey reveals my communication preferences in eight
dimensions. My three most important communication preferences have
significantly changed in a short time period: leading, persuading, and
disagreeing.
My leading score of 3.33 reveals that I prefer hierarchical leadership
structures. However, after extensively working with my team, I learned that
I prefer flat leadership structures because it allows each team member
to influence the direction of deliverables and become invested in
producing high-quality results.
My persuasion score of 1.00 discloses my preference of establishing a
theoretical basis for why our team should execute a specific decision.
However, I now use tangible examples to advocate for the inclusion of
specific ideas, visualizations, and key points to my teammates.
My disagreeing score of 3.00 means that I am more likely to avoid
confrontation and keep disagreements private. However, I found that it is
better to raise issues during a team meeting to obtain the opinions of all
members. Thus, my team could move forward with no lingering issues.

Juxtaposing Internal and External Perceptions

Composite Assertiveness My PeopleStyles survey designated me with a moderate composite assertiveness

score of 3, which reveals my self-perception of asserting my thoughts in the work
environment at times. Contrarily, my professional reputation survey responses gave
me an average composite assertiveness score of 6. This high external score
indicates that I consistently assert my thoughts, work quickly, and complete tasks at a
brisk pace. Although the professional reputation survey contradicts my self-
perception on my composite assertiveness, I agree with the score assigned from my
Self-Perception Average Colleague Perception colleagues. In settings where my reputation or credibility are “on the line”, I tend to
largely shape the direction of team projects.

Composite Responsiveness
My personal PeopleStyles survey designated me with a moderate composite
responsiveness score of -5, which reveals my self-perception that I focus on work with

0
minimal time for being social. However, my professional reputation survey responses gave
me an average composite responsiveness score of 0, which means that I tend to be
more people-oriented and less reserved. I purport that I exhibit both qualities at times. I
like interacting with my peers, but I am able to quickly switch to a task-focus orientation
when the need arises. Self-Perception Average Colleague Perception

lleagues Des
Co Competitive cr
y ib
M Empathetic
Analyzing Adjectives
There are three adjectives selected by most professional reputation survey
Even-tempered
respondents that I did not use to describe myself: caring, empathetic, and

e
w

Idea-generator Independent Involved

M
Ho

trusting. The reason why these results surprise me is because I always try

e
Leaderlike Perfectionistic Problem-solver

Rule-follower Self-confident Trusting Well-rounded to present myself as robotic—in that I neither show emotions nor let
emotions cloud my decisions. For example, I believe that I am hardworking,
escribe M
ID well-informed, and good with numbers—which were selected by most
ys

Driven
w

respondents. Wouldn’t an inspector for an artificial intelligence system test to

Ho

elf

Good With Numbers

Growth-oriented see if the machine possesses those characteristics? My teammates say that
Hard-working I am hard-working in my 360-degree evaluations as well. I am pleasantly
Respects Authority surprised by these results because it indicates that you can earn respect by
Values Education caring for others—and not just by high task performance and other results-
Well-informed
based measures.

Collecting Colleague Comments

“Christian puts a lot of effort into the “One of the brightest young minds I
work he does and values everyone's have met here at the U of A.”
opinion.”

“Christian put a lot of work into this

“I don’t think you realize the
presentation and sacrificing other classes
influence you have in the room. I
and personal obligations to get this
think by building on your
project done. He showed up on time and
confidence will make you more of a
offered valuable contributions to the
powerful public speaker.”
project.”

Forward Focused
One key piece of constructive feedback echoed by my respondents and teammates is that I speak quickly during presentations, which caused me to:
appear awkward at times; appear nervous; ramble; and leave teammates or audience members “in the dust”. I have come to the same conclusion
about my presentation skills, and I am glad to see that my peers have advised me to improve on the same aspects. I believe that I can address these
issues—and turn weaknesses into strengths—via experience. Refining my presentation skills via practice will allow me to: exude confidence, speak
slower, be concise, and involve teammates more.

I am surprised that my self-perception is so different from the perception of others. However, incorporating these perceived social styles will let me
combine my robotic and empathetic characteristics to build meaningful connections with my constituents and fulfill their needs to the fullest
extent. My ability to “switch” social styles will help me connect with a diverse pool of individuals who think and communicate in a myriad of ways.

Through the executive summary process, I learned that the most pivotal element to a successful professional persona is to recognize how others
perceive you and adapt my professional identity to connect with business professionals, constituents, and public officials.