The Highly Sensitive Person And The World Of Work: A Complex Environment

The Highly Sensitive Person (PAS) very often feels the work environment as a hostile and complex setting. Competitiveness, structural rigidity, criticism, sounds, and forced conversations completely drain your mind and energy. Their exceptional capabilities are seldom appreciated.

Daniel H. Pink is an expert in the field of work motivation and the author of several successful books on the world of business psychology. According to him, the future belongs to the “right hemisphere.” We have reached a point where systematization, computing and automation are being transformed to give way to new skills known as “high concept”. This is where intuition, creativity and empathy come together.

Now, we know that today these new work areas are not appreciated, they are not seen and they are not easily found . The highly sensitive person (PAS) is often doomed to integrate into a highly structured and non-facilitating context where they are unable to “flourish” professionally. 

Hence, they are physically and emotionally exhausted in their continuous effort to fit into a context that is not very facilitating and even reactive to their essences, to their personality. A delicate reality that we want to talk to you about next.

The Highly Sensitive Person (PAS) and its problems in the world of work

Dr. Elaine Aron, an expert on the subject of high sensitivity, tells us that in reality, there are very few PAS who really feel good about their work. In fact, in many work contexts sensitivity is seen as a passive and not very useful dimension for the organization.

On the other hand, we know that every person, whether PAS or not, needs to feel valued and respected at work to be productive, to give their best. However, high sensitivity requires more than all this. It needs its own “habitat” where it can germinate, where it can feel emotionally and psychically well. You need to tune your heart to context.

Main problems of today’s working environments for high sensitivity

The highly sensitive person is like a “radar”. Any alteration, disagreement or dysfunction in the work environment will be perceived by the PAS person in the first place. These situations subject them to a permanent state of anxiety.

• A work environment with an excess of sounds, lights or where personal interaction is continuous supposes an overexertion to your neural system. They will feel exhausted in a few hours.

• Another unique aspect is that the high sensitivity is able to anticipate any need that arises in your work environment. Something like this causes the person to assume other people’s responsibilities. Now, he does not do it out of the simple need to please others, but because he understands that it must be done. Something that in the long term, increases its overload even more.

• In turn, the Human Resources department does not always take care of the work environment nor is it receptive to this type of subtlety that surrounds the highly sensitive person. In addition, the most common is that they have mistaken ideas about this type of personality. Namely: that they are vulnerable, without the ability to achieve or even less, leadership.

Something completely wrong that we now clarify.

The future of smart organizations and high sensitivity

We indicated it at the beginning. The current model of large companies and organizations is changing. A more intuitive, creative and environmentally sensitive human capital is needed to anticipate what society needs. This supposed cultural bias towards highly sensitive people as a “passive” sector is beginning to change.

• High sensitivity is a valuable tool to perceive and anticipate new markets. They are people capable of empathizing much more with the client to know what they need.

• The companies of the future seek to better manage the diversity of their workforce. Work environments no longer aspire to have an army of “look-alike professionals.” Now, they need people capable of contributing unique and exceptional human capital. There where creativity and intuition are two very powerful strategies.

Highly sensitive people also integrate that aptitude known as “high concept” that we have indicated at the beginning. It is a dimension that, in turn, characterizes good leaders. Because to the surprise of many, the PAS have an ideal profile for it: they are visionary, intuitive and very capable of seeing in perspective, never in an atomic, biased or reductionist way.

They are thoughtful and create a good social climate. At the same time, they are vigilant, they seek excellence in everything they do and foster that conscious and innovative spirit that will undoubtedly be the key to the future in many organizations. You just need to believe enough in yourself so that sooner or later, the world will discover all that that look that understands life from the heart and through the right hemisphere can offer.

Images courtesy of de Zana Holloway, Shayari and all, Lou Schoof