Are you a vampire? Take the quiz to find out
Vampires suck the life out of a room. They suck the life out of whoever they’re around, and usually they’re not aware of it and don’t care. Which is another reason they’re vampires. We’ve all been around people who make us feel exhausted or upset, those people who present an impenetrable negative front no matter what the occasion.
What’s truly terrifying about vampires, though, is that they are made of negative thinking. Can you guess who struggles with negative thinking? I do. And you do. We all struggle with negative thinking. It’s wired into our brains, a prehistoric protection to make us skeptical and doubtful of our reality in order to stay safe.
Which is to say our negative thinking could turn us into vampires if we’re not careful.
The opposite of a vampire is an angel.
Angels make us feel good about ourselves. They project warmth and acceptance and a welcoming attitude. An angel is made of positive thinking. This person can take negative thoughts and turn them to her favor. An angel is full of brightness, like the sun. We want more of this, and when it’s not around, we miss it.
Holding this thought in your mind right now, that you could be a vampire or an angel (or a bit of both), ask yourself this question: What would my co-workers say I am?
Things just got a bit scary.
As a leader, it’s important you recognize how important it is to be the angel and not the vampire. Your influence is outsized and can change the course of the business as your entire team takes your negative perspective on a company-wide development. Or the team takes on your positive perspective and moves forward with innovative solutions that transform the industry. It really can begin with the simple idea of positive and negative thinking.
Shift Positive 360, a tool to measure vampire tendencies.
In my work with leaders I often use the Shift Positive 360 tool to help them understand how others see them in the context of positive and negative thinking. Recognizing that our own personal assessments might be biased or flawed, the tool provides a framework for interviewing the people you work with.
Some example questions are:
When you interact with [leader] how does it affect your energy level? What do they do that raises people’s energy? Zaps people’s energy?
Question for the leader: How do you think your co-workers will answer this about you?
Suppose [leader] played a big part in helping you achieve success. What did they do that was so helpful?
Question for the leader: How do you think your co-workers will answer this about you?
Shift Positive 360 has helped many of my clients identify their tendencies toward negative expression, and we’ve worked together to track thought patterns, identify the quotient that are useful, positive, or negative, and created an internal shift toward positive thinking. In short, we’re working toward avoiding becoming vampires. In the absence of this tool, a simple quiz might give you insight into your tendencies. Being aware of vampire tendencies is the first step in becoming more of an angel.
Quiz: Are you a vampire?
The obvious vampire behaviors hardly require a quiz. But in the professional environment, vampires can be more subtle and skilled as their negative thinking permeates the atmosphere. People feel suddenly tired in their presence, but can’t pin down why. You might not be aware of your own subtle vampire tics.
1. It’s budget time and the guidance from the top is unclear. Your group and your peer group leaders are making the justification for their disproportionate budget increases:
A. You collaborate beyond your own goals, establishing some principles for decision making that you think will be constructive, trying to build coalition and unify the group.
B. You point out the mis-judgements of your peers to your manager, who you know sees you as a high performer. You powerfully defend your case and make a point of challenging other cases.
2. A project that’s important to you personally is pushed to the next quarter because of resource constraints. You suspect that your manager and the CEO won’t be pleased. You decide to:
A. Try to understand the issues and perspectives with an open mind, with the belief that there is probably something to learn and options that may not include meeting the original schedule, but which are positive in some ways.
B. Push the team harder (which has worked before), forcing them to make difficult choices and compromises so that you can stick to the original schedule for this project.
3. A new senior leader and peer to you has made a strong impression in their first three months, earning lots of kudos and praise. So much so that you begin to feel inferior. You see this person as arrogant. Someone also tells you they have made critical remarks about your group’s performance. You:
A. Ignore your inner judge, retaining focus on your priorities and reminding yourself that there are all sorts of personalities and everyone has strengths. Over time you hope to have a positive and effective relationship with the new leader by learning to appreciate each other more deeply.
B. Confront the new leader, judging that they should be transparent and direct with comments about you or your group, making it clear they have crossed a boundary.
4. One of your senior directors is performing poorly. Despite you feeling you have explored what might be going on, coached and supported them, you are disappointed that they haven’t accepted feedback, and have taken no accountability in making changes and demonstrating that they wish to have a trusting and productive relationship with you. You:
A. Meet and be clear about what you’ve observed over time, and share your feelings of disappointment that you haven’t seen any signs of change. You once again set clear expectations and ask them to make a choice on whether they want to stay and change, or move elsewhere. You make sure you ask them for their perspective and recap the next steps before finishing your meeting.
B. Accept that not everyone has your standards and decide to let things run their course, because you don’t have time to deal with this problem.
5. So much of company time is being wasted by internal bureaucracy, and you’d really rather be spending more time with customers. This bureaucratic culture has become so ingrained that you and your team have become increasingly frustrated. You:
A. Lobby opinions and explore how some workgroups could pool perspectives on how to make some adjustments to culture and operations.
B. Suck it up. Whilst you’re frustrated you’ve seen if you play the game well, defend your team and use your influence, you can often make the best of it.
Scoring: More “A” responses means you’re trending to angel. More “B” responses means you’re trending to vampire. Learn more about positive intelligence to flip your thinking.
Do you work with a vampire? What is the most damaging behavior you see in the vampire?
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