Was I “fearless?” No, it was just Consistency

In 2016, I was working in the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs. The Agency considered it a “rotation,” as I was administratively “owned” by the Analysis directorate, while doing work for another component. Many times, rotations enabled people to grow as they were exposed to different experiences at CIA. Sometimes you worked in a staff job, other times you worked for another directorate.

I decided I didn’t want to be an analyst anymore and applied to the career service that covered public affairs. Part of my application included an interview with a panel of senior-level employees from the career service. I was eventually accepted and received a phone call from one of the interview panel members.

As a part of that conversation, she said to me, “Parker, it was clear to us on the interview panel that you’re fearless.” In that moment, I acknowledged and agreed. She replied, “Well, it’s good to have some fear.”

I respectfully disagreed at the time, though I didn’t know why.

In early 2023, I became a Certified CliftonStrengths Coach, learned intensely about each of the 34 CliftonStrengths, and started my own coaching practice. Since then, I’ve been working with individuals and teams across business sectors to help them be the best they can be in their personal and professional lives.

As I’ve continued my study of the 34 CliftonStrengths, I thought about how fear could impact people’s talents. What role did it play? How did it affect them? Then, something caused me to reflect on my conversation with the senior-level interview panel member.

I came to a realization: It wasn’t that I was fearless. Rather, I was demonstrating my CliftonStrength theme of Consistency (my #7 strength). As Gallup defines it, people exceptionally talented in the Consistency theme are keenly aware of the need to treat people the same. And that’s what I was doing: I was treated the panel members not with some sort of deference because of who they were, but I was treating them as equals, just as I would the President of the United States (I’ve met two) or the a custodian at CIA headquarters (I’ve met many). Everybody deserved to be treated with the same level of respect, regardless of the position they held.

That’s what I was showing in my interview.

And that’s why it’s important to reflect on our prior experiences and consider them within the context of our CliftonStrengths themes. I wasn’t fearless, I was just displaying one of my strongest talents without knowing it.