Vazirsingh’s Weblog

Early in my career, I was  handed an important lesson by my first boss back in 1992.

He told me that all persons have latent(potential) and obvious qualities. Additionally these qualities can be judged by self or others.This creates a quadrant.I will list all the squares below as it is the best way to describe them.

1st square:  Self=Obvious, Others=latent. These are your secret abilities/qualities.

2nd square Self=latent,Others= obvious. This is what the world thinks about your qualities/yourself, but you may have no inkling.

3rd square Self=Obvious, Others= obvious. These are your proven abilities recognised by all.

4th square Self=latent,others=latent. This is your unknown potential.

There can be an issue of self image when there is contradiction between 1st and 2nd square.You may believe yourself to be a very straight,honest and god-fearing humble person.Others may see you as a crooked, conniving,lazy person.Truth is usually midway between self image and reputation.

Not many people face up very well to square 2 if there is a negative connotation as it is seen as criticism and denial is complete. I actually have practiced hard to get a cool headed analysis of such things directed at me. An useful ploy is to look at it from the others point of view. Sometimes it is genuine, sometimes it is because of insecurity and fear, or plain malice or jealousy.

Sometimes we create a halo around our own heads, in reality the head is in the clouds.

It is necessary to do a self assessment periodically and see if self image and reputation are well reconciled with each other.