Originally Posted by
nanashi
I just got back from listening to my IEI friend talk about her various griefs for hours. I loved it. I really enjoy being the friend people know they can share their shit with. I love learning about them and their needs. I love being supportive for them. I love applying what they learn in my own life. AND THAT IS VERY GAMMA. It's in the wikisocion articles on gammas and how they prefer to talk about life.
I listened to my EII friend for an hour doing the same thing yesterday afternoon. 'I always feel better when I talk with you.'
I had a maybe 3 hours discussion on life and his relationships with my ESTJ friend in a messaging app LAST NIGHT.
I guess if you had a few gammas at your job that behaved the way yours did, you might think we're all business and abusive. We're not.
I don't relate to that at all ...that 'not listening' at all.
People have sought me ought for the last two decades to confide in me and get relief in sharing what they need to.
And at my job this summer, I am the one people come to when they don't go to HR, and I listen and commiserate, and then I talk with them about getting their needs met. And then I go do it.
And when I was teaching tech, the kids came to me when an aide was being coercive and denigrating to them because I paused more than the other teachers were and made special efforts to encourage them to speak up and get me if they couldn't handle something, including when I disagreed with their not correcting a teacher. I explained that it helps me when they share what they see and that the first person who could find a mistake I made and shared it with me during class would get to take the class toy home. And I disagreed that they needed to call me Ms. Nanashi's Lastname. The other teacher down the hall was SERIOUSLY upset by that. "They need to know who's the teacher."
'I'm almost six feet tall. They know who the teacher is.' I want them to understand how the ability really functions and to get that I have a first name, nanashi, and that I don't think I'm above them or their dictator.
I am more concerned with them developing self-advocacy skills, getting that I am human and thus fallible though good-intentioned and willing to grow and correct my behavior, knowing I'm their ally (not just their authoritarian leader), and they are co-creating the world we're in.
LIE are not Mr. Burns. We're shit at somethings, but we're VERY invested in peoples' lives and can be incredibly gregarious, loyal, supportive, and self-sacrificing. We don't only have characteristics of cruel, abusive leaders.
I have seen myself motivate and support people into excellence in their work or learning. AND A TON OF IT WAS VIA LISTENING TO THEM.