The Introvert Leader

The Office: What Character Do You Work With?

• Austin Hopkins

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What if your coworkers were straight out of a sitcom? In this episode of The Introvert Leader Podcast, I’m breaking down five workplace archetypes using characters from The Office. From the passionate-but-clueless Michael Scott to the perfectionist Angela and people-pleaser Andy, you’ll learn how to spot these styles, appreciate their strengths, and work around their blind spots. Whether you’re leading a team or just trying to survive your 9-to-5, this one’s packed with insights and laughs.


Timestamps

01:44 – Michael Scott (Mr. Nothing But Heart): Why leading with passion matters and how it can backfire when you don’t read the room.

06:04 – Angela Martin (Mrs. Perfection): High standards and hidden mistakes, and the double-edged sword of perfectionism at work.

10:42 – Andy Bernard (Mr. People Pleaser): People pleasing feels productive, but it often masks insecurity and undermines leadership.

15:13 – Jim Halpert (Mr. Wasted Potential): Coasting in your comfort zone? Learn how to stop playing it safe and start showing up.

21:10 – Kelly Kapoor (Mrs. Blind Confidence): The boldness is impressive, but how far can confidence take you without self-awareness?

25:02 – Challenge for Listeners: Which character are you, and what are two blind spots you might need to confront?



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SPEAKER_00:

I don't work with you, but I bet you a hundred bucks I know the people you work with. Every office or company around the world has the same type of characters. They make us laugh, they piss us off, and they become a part of our lives. My favorite characters in TV history are from my favorite show, The Office. It emerged in early 2000s and quickly changed the comedy game. It's a documentary-style comedy that follows the day-to-day operations of a small paper company in Pennsylvania. I remember sneaking downstairs after my parents went to bed and turning on our little TV in the living room to watch it. I would sit there with the lights out, dying of laughter, trying to keep quiet. And honestly, it was so hard. That's what she said. Excuse me. Hello, this is your host, Austin Hopkins, and welcome to the Introvert Leader Podcast. In today's episode, I'm going to be dropping quotes, breaking down scenes, and examining the different kinds of characters in the show and the characters we work with. Don't be surprised if it gets a little weird. I gotta tell you, the show brings it out of me. I'm having entirely way too much fun prepping and filming these videos for YouTube. So if you're not watching the videos and you're just listening to the audio, you'd be missing out. And if you love The Office or workplace personality archetypes, then I know you're gonna love this episode. If you haven't seen the show, my selfish goal is to get you to watch your first episode. So I remember watching the show and almost screaming at the screen, trying to tell the characters to see their blind spots, trying to warn what to watch out for. And in your job, you're gonna encounter the same types of characters. And my hope is that you develop a new appreciation for those folks and you learn how to help them be their best and how to optimize their style. So I want to jump into our first character archetype, Michael Scott. So I like to call Michael Scott Mr. Nothing But Heart. And my favorite quote from Michael is, I'm not super stitched, but I am a little stitchious. Michael is the branch manager of Dunner Mifflin in Pennsylvania. And I want to set up a scene. There is a new CFO at your company, and he asks you and three of your peers to give a presentation about your department so you can get a better understanding of your business. Now, most people would assume that the CFO wants to hear about the numbers. They want to hear about the trends and the PL, but not Michael Scott. He stands up in front of the room and he plays a home movie montage with the photos of his employees and fun facts about them. Think like high school presentation. The movie finishes and the CFO looks to Michael and says, Hey, for right now, what I'd really like to know about is your branch's performance. The room goes silent, super awkward, one of my favorite scenes. And when I think about my favorite people to work with, they have something in common. They have a lot of heart. And when a person has heart, they are authentic, they are passionate, and they are engaged. However, all heart without any executive presence to balance it out is a recipe for disaster. That heart can get you results in the short term, but it always has a way of holding you back from climbing the corporate ladder as fast as you can. And now I gotta tell you, Michael is my favorite character by far. I love watching his unbridled passion backfire time and time again, and yet he keeps trying and leading with his heart. At the beginning of the show, you kind of hate him, but by like season three, you realize that Michael brings so much heart that it overshadows his lack of awareness. And one of my favorite parts of the show is watching characters like Michael have moments of redemption. For example, Michael is low-key one of the best salesmen, but it's often overshadowed by his lack of polish. But you start to appreciate them the more and more you watch. So the longer you watch Michael, you start to appreciate what he's really like, and that mimics real life. So what I thought would be fun was to break down the Mr. Nothing but Heart archetype. I want to share some of the strengths and some of the blind spots of that kind of character. And I'm also gonna share two things they can do to optimize their style. So I want to kick things off by talking about the strengths. The first strength is they don't play games. Michael has no problem telling his romantic partners like Jan and Holly how he feels. He doesn't pretend to like people he doesn't like in the office. So he's not putting on airs, he's not pretending. And you know what you get with those people right away, right? They wear their emotions right on their sleeve. I think the other amazing strength of people like that is they don't care what people think. Michael is just who he is. It doesn't matter if he looks stupid, if he puts himself out there, whether it's Michael doing one of his wildly inappropriate impersonations or trying a new sales strategy, he doesn't care about looking stupid. He's gonna do his own thing and he's gonna follow his heart. Now, with those strengths, they come some blind spots. So the biggest blind spots for people like Michael or nothing but heart is they can't read the room and adjust their style accordingly. So, you know, maybe they're in a room of executives and they say the wrong thing. Or maybe they're leading a presentation and they step on somebody's toes in the room. They don't know how to read and adjust, and that gets them into trouble. I think another big blind spot for people like this is they ruffle feathers because they lack tact. And, you know, it comes down to just leading with their heart and maybe not thinking things through as much as they could. And so what I thought would be fun is to now give you two things that that kind of person could do to optimize their style. So you might be thinking they have nothing but heart, but what could they do to bring out the good side of their personality type? I think the first thing people of that personality style can do is ask for feedback. When we ask for feedback, we get a mirror on how we've been acting and how we've been showing up, and we get to hear from others and see what's going well and what's not going well. I think another thing people like that can do to optimize their styles to spend more time observing how successful leaders show up. So, you know, Michael in the show was around a lot of successful executives. He was around the CFO, he was around his manager who managed all the other regional managers. He was around other executives at different points in the show, and he could have easily just taken a second and watched how are they showing up? What are they saying? What are they choosing not to say? How are they staying quiet? How can they bring their passion without letting it be overshadowed by their lack of polish? Now, throughout the show, Michael is Michael. He's just himself, and he couldn't care less about perfection. But I bet you have worked with someone who is the opposite of Michael, someone who cares deeply about being perfect. And I want to move on to our next character, archetype. I want to talk about Angela Martin. And I like to call her Mrs. Perfection. One of my favorite quotes from Angela is a coworker of mine is drinking coffee while pregnant. And I don't know if I should call social services about it. And this is just a perfect quote for Angela, right? Always judging people, always up on her ivory tower. And I want to set up a scene for you that kind of breaks down Angela's. So I want you to imagine for a second that you were a head accountant in your department. You were supposed to send in the quarterly tax forms to corporate. You send it in every quarter, you never miss it, but for some reason, this quarter you completely forgot. Angela, the head accountant in the office, is chatting with Kevin, the other accountant that works for her. Kevin looks at Angela as he puts down the phone and he says, That was a voicemail that corporate left last night. They did not get our tax forms. Did you send them in? Angela looks guilty and says, They arrived this morning. Later in the episode, we find out that Angela's secret boyfriend drove nearly three hours to New York to cover for Angela. At the end of the episode, Angela cannot admit her mistake. She cannot bear to admit her fault or expose her relationship because she has to look perfect. And it comes to a head when Dwight, her boyfriend, ends up quitting to protect her. She's so worried about admitting that mistake that her boyfriend literally needs to quit his job. Now I loved Angela's character on the show because she actually reminds me of so many people that I've worked with over the years. And perfection comes with some cool advantages, but the blind spots can also do serious harm if left unchecked. So I want to take a look at the misperfection archetype. So to kick it off, let's talk about the strengths. So, first off, people like this put out high quality outputs, right? Angela in the show plans super successful parties. She stays in leadership and always gets good performance reviews. And I think that is a common characteristic of these people is they put out high quality outputs because they are so focused on not making mistakes that they double check every single detail. They go over it over and over and over again and spend hours, even on the smallest detail, because they want to make sure that the work that they're submitting is perfect and there's no errors. I think another big strength of this kind of character type is they're ultra consistent and they're reliable. Perfection means you have to stay consistent and they're gonna show up day in, day out. They're gonna put up the results that you want. Now, that's awesome, right? That that's amazing, but with that come some weaknesses and some blind spots. And so the first thing that I noticed about Angela is she was way more frequently judging others on the show. Angela was the head of party planning and frequently judged Phyllis, another employee, for her ideas, even calling her choices whorish at times, which I love. I have a good friend, and he always says this we judge in others what we judge in ourselves. So people who want to look perfect judge when others around them aren't doing what they think they should do. And at the end of the day, they care more about their image than honesty. So perfection is a hard thing to hold on to. It takes a ton of energy to always look perfect. And it makes me think of Angela. When she became homeless at the end of the show, instead of asking for help or admitting that she, you know, wasn't doing well, she decided to live in a tent with her kid and her 30 cats and just pretend everything was okay. Now, let's say you happen to find yourself being Mrs. Perfect or Mr. Perfect. How could you optimize your style to make sure that you are not going too far in one direction? I think at the end of the day, the first thing you can do is focus less on the micro and more on the macro. So people that chase perfection are focused on the smallest detail and they forget about the big picture. What are they actually working towards? And by the way, do these small details really matter? Or is the general vision or goal more important? The answer is of course yes. Now I'm not saying to neglect the small, the micro, but focusing on the macro for those people is the game changer. So always asking yourself questions like, what's at stake here? What's the bigger picture? Does this detail really matter? I think the next thing those people can do to optimize their style is admit and own their mistakes. So what if Angela had just admitted her mistake and said, hey, I forgot to send in the tax forms? Would she have got fired? Of course not. No one would have cared. And just like in real life, when we admit our mistakes, a lot of times people don't care, but it also grows trust and it also changes something in ourselves where we start to realize if I make a mistake and I admit it, there are no big consequences. I'm not going to get fired. No one hates me. I'm still valuable. And so I think that's the big thing. Admitting and owning just even a small mistake can start to change the way they see perfection and that unrealistic standard they place on themselves and others. Now, I don't know if you would agree with this, but I think chasing perfection is in essence kind of a form of people pleasing. And I bet you know of a people pleaser at your work. And I'd like to transition and discuss our next character, Andy, Mr. People Pleaser. And here is my favorite quote from Andy. I'll be the number two guy in Scranton in six weeks. How? Name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake. So I want to give you a setup about a scene that shows who Andy is to his core. So Michael, the branch manager and Jim, a sales rep, were sitting in the kitchen talking. Andy had spent the entire episode literally following Michael around like a puppy and agreeing with everything he said and copying everything he did. Michael is talking with Jim and asks him, What do he thinks of Andy? Jim says, Andy's a yes man. Michael responds and says, Not all the time. Sometimes I say I don't like something, and he says he doesn't like it either. And by the way, perfect scene of Michael just again leading with his heart. And at the end of the day, Andy's a people pleaser. He lives to please and impress the people around him. His personality and style literally change depending on who he's talking with. And over the course of the episode, Andy loses his shit. Michael rejects Andy's need to hang out with him. Jim hides his cell phone as a prank, and Andy ends up punching the wall in one of the most cringe-worthy moments in TV history. And I can totally relate with Andy's character, not the anger issues or the punching, but the need to please others. Andy wants people to like and accept him. And early in my career, I was so concerned about fitting in and pleasing those around me that I started to even begin to lose a little of my sense of self, just like Andy does at different moments throughout the show. Now, with that, I want to take a closer look at the Mr. People pleaser archetype. So let's start with the strengths. So the first one, I think people like this build rapport easily. In the beginning of that episode, Michael instantly likes Andy because he is so easy to be around. Eventually, the whole office actually even supports him as manager and really likes him. And I think that just shows those kind of people, they are good at reading what people want and giving it to them. So they can build rapport super, super quickly, which by the way, super big advantage if you're in an interview, if you're shotting at a new company, if you're taking over a new team. What a great advantage to have is to be able to build rapport quickly. I think another big one is these kind of people take risks. And I don't even know if it's because they are doing it strategically or if they're just doing it in order to fit in or to please people, but they're willing to take even potentially bigger risks than the people around them because it's what they think they should do. So, like a couple examples, you know, Andy moves a couple of states over to take a job in Pennsylvania. He moves into leadership, right? These are big risks, but again, he's doing it to please others. He's doing it to please his dad, to please a boss, you know, to please his family, friends, or whatever. And so obviously, some big advantages to taking big risks and building rapport, but there's also some big blind spots and some big weaknesses that come along with this archetype. So let's dive into those. So I think the first one is it can be really hard to trust someone like this. How can you trust someone who is feeding you what you want? Right? Is what they're saying what they really believe? Are they just saying that? Do they have original thought? Even Michael picks up onto this later in the episode and realizes like this guy doesn't have any original thought and he's just gonna do whatever Michael says and does. I I think another really big blind spot for this kind of archetype is they can lack innovation or creativity. Like if all you do is copy others to fit in, what are you really bringing to the table? Right? What is your unique perspective? What is your unique opinion? Or are you just parroting and copying the people around you, right? And that can be pretty exhausting. Now, there are some things you can do to optimize if this is your style. And again, take it from a guy who has struggled with people pleasing. I think the first thing you can do is share more of your own perspective or opinions. So, how can you share more of what you're thinking? And I think another thing you can do is pick moments to be honest, even if it's hard or uncomfortable. So I remember when I was struggling with this, I would literally tell myself when I was going into a one-on-one or when I was going into a meeting, Austin, I want you to say one uncomfortable thing today that you believe that people in the room may not agree with. And my goodness, raising your hand and saying something that you know people are gonna disagree with, oh, it is one of the hardest things to do for a people pleaser. But man, you get so much power from doing that. You feel more confident and you share something small, and then you can share something bigger, and you keep snowballing, and then you get to a point where you're able to just be yourself and you're less worried about the people around you and what they think of you, and you're just more worried about being yourself, which by the way is what we all want. We don't want to have to be actors in our real life. We want to be us. We want to be the same people at work as we are at home, and we want those two to be authentic and cohesive. Now, when you care too much about pleasing others, you can annoy the crap out of people. Andy had a special knack for bugging Jim. And speaking of Jim, I want to transition and tell you about my other favorite character in the show. I want to move on and talk about Jim Halpert, Mr. Wasted Potential. I want to kick things off by sharing a quote that I think just perfectly encapsulates Jim's style. Right now, this is just a job. If I advance any higher in this company, this would be my career. And if this were my career, I'd have to throw myself in front of a train. I love that quote. I think it's so perfect, summing up Jim and his style. Now, here's the setup of the scene I want to cover. Jim is the sales rep, and he is always messing with Dwight, another sales rep. Jim spends hours creating elaborate, clever pranks on Dwight, like wrapping his entire desk in wrapping paper or moving his desk into the bathroom. And instead of trying to sell more or move up the ladder or make an impact, he devotes so much time into just having fun. Now, I want to break down one of my favorite scenes. So the office is gathered in the conference room to welcome Charles, a new senior leader who's going to be visiting the branch. And Jim is wearing a full tuxedo with his hair slicked back because he's pranking Dwight. Now, Charles walks in a room and he looks at Jim up and down and says, Why are you wearing a tuxedo? Jim chuckles and says, I didn't think you'd notice. He looks visibly nervous and awkwardly walks away. In that moment, Jim lost all of his credibility and the potential for a good first impression. He looked junior. Jim wasn't thinking about the bigger picture when he got dressed for the day. He was more concerned with having fun. Jim wasted years of potential because he wasn't thinking about the bigger picture. He wasn't dreaming forward and he wasn't acting on anything meaningful. He was just in the moment. He was reacting instead of being proactive. And that's how wasted potential happens. When we aren't clear on where we're going, we default to staying where we're at. Now, Jim is a fun character, and I gotta tell you, I love his vibe for so many reasons. I love that he found his wife at work, just like me. I love that he enjoyed having fun at work. I think there's nothing wrong with that. And I love that in the end, he actually rises to the occasion and starts to fulfill his potential by starting a business. But for more than a decade, he stayed in the same role at the same company doing the same thing. It almost felt like he didn't feel fulfilled in his work and he just decided to coast. And I've seen too many smart people coast because they either haven't found their path or they're on the wrong one altogether. And I've done that too. I've wasted potential over the years. But I think it's really interesting to look at Jim, Mr. Wasted Potential, because he does it for so long. So let's jump into it and break down some of the strengths, the weaknesses, and some of the things they can do to optimize. So to kick things off, let's talk about the strengths. So if you've watched the show, Jim is highly creative. He creates the most complicated and intricate pranks. He comes up with an idea for a sports marketing business, which he later on starts. But like Jim is highly creative. So when he wants to, when he wants to channel that creativity, he gets amazing results. People love Jim when he's actually applying himself. It just doesn't happen very often. Now, why doesn't that happen? I don't know, you're gonna have to watch the show to find out. But I think the other big thing that this character type comes with is intelligence. Jim is very intelligent. He can read the room, he can read people very well, and he was even considered for senior leadership at one point. Now he's intelligent, he's highly creative, but he's got some blind spots. He's got some weaknesses, and so I want to give you a couple of those to look out for. So the first one is they wait for stuff to happen instead of making it happen. If you don't take action, get out of your comfort zone. How do you expect to get where you want? There were some times that Jim got out of his comfort zone, but not nearly as much as he needed to, and definitely not consistently. I think the second big blind spot for people like this is they're their own worst enemy. So imagine you have all this potential, you have all these abilities, but you're in your own way. You get stuck thinking, you know, you're not good enough, or maybe it's not interesting enough, or it's gonna be too hard, or whatever the reason, you get in your own way. So you have all this potential, all this value, but it's being blocked by your own self. And I think that's a big thing to watch out for on people like this. And you know, what's also interesting is a lot of times I feel like people in this situation feel like they're good enough to get by and they don't push, right? You might find that you're like Jim. You're better than most of the people around you, you're smarter, you're more intelligent, more creative. And so you're almost like, eh, I really need to push, like no one else is pushing, I'm still better than everyone else. And so I think that kind of goes back to things we've talked about earlier in the podcast is when we're comparing ourselves to other, never a good thing. What are we doing to compare to ourselves? Are we really pushing ourselves to the best of our ability? Are we benchmarking against ourselves? Now, there's a couple of things you can do if you find yourself in this situation. The first thing you can do is find a way to channel your energy into work you actually care about. So there were two or three, maybe four moments in the show where Jim found something he was interested in. He wanted to be the manager of the branch at one time. So he applied himself and put himself out there. And that was a good run for Jim. And then he kind of backslid and things didn't go as well when he had to step back into his previous role. Now, what can you find at your work to channel your energy? So there's going to be work that you do that's not interesting, right? We all have that. But there are maybe some small things. Maybe it's a small project or a small initiative or a small team or a situation with a person where you can just affect their life in a positive way and mentor and coach them. But finding a way to channel that energy, that intelligence, that creativity into something you actually care about, that that's the key here. That's where you're made in the shade. When you're able to channel that value, that potential into something that's important to you, killer. I think the other thing that people like this can do is keep your eye on the long-term goal and make micro decisions to support it. What if Jim had had a clear goal on what he wanted to do in the long term? What if in the first couple of seasons he knew, you know, I want to move up and become a director, I want to become a manager like Michael? What would have happened if he would have had that goal early on? Imagine what could have happened. I think it could have been really cool to see Jim rise up to the ranks even faster. And so if you are finding yourself as that archetype, if you're that type of character at the end of the day, you've got all the makings for success. Just get out of your own way. Think about the long term, find something you actually care about. You're gonna be fantastic. Now, I think Jim is one of the biggest time wasters in the office. However, another classic character named Kelly was a close second. So I want to wrap up by covering our last character, Kelly Kapoor, misses Blind Confidence. So let's kick it off by sharing my favorite quote. I think sometimes people are really mean to the hot popular girl. I love that quote so much. I think it's crazy. Kelly is unhinged, Kelly is insane, but I love Kelly. And I want to set up a scene of Kelly doing her thing. So Kelly is the head of customer service for the branch. So for most of the show, Kelly is more concerned with celebrity gossip and pop culture than doing a good job. But in season seven, Kelly gets a shot to be part of the company executive training program. Now she only did it because her boyfriend told her to, and she has let this tiny little power go straight to her head. So here's the scene: the camera is interviewing Kelly, just like I'm talking to the camera right now, and she says, This summer I did the minority executive training program. You guys, like, I'm really smart now. You don't even know. You could ask me, Kelly, what's the biggest company in the world? And I'd be like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, giving you the exact right answer. When I think of a character that makes me laugh consistently, it's it's gotta be Kelly. Her misplaced confidence is absolutely hilarious. She says the wrong things and looks so cringe, yet her confidence helps her navigate her career and ultimately get what she wants. So the first things first, let's look at the strengths. So number one, fearless communication. Kelly isn't afraid to share her opinions in meetings. She will say the uncomfortable thing, she'll call the person out, she'll say what everybody else is thinking. She'll just say anything that pops into her brain at any time. Doesn't matter who the audience is, if it's the CFO in the room, doesn't matter. Fearless communication, for that I respect her, by the way, because I think that's a cool skill. Now, the other thing that I think Kelly has in spade is charisma. Kelly is fun to be around because she has so much dang charisma and energy. She knows who she is and what she wants. And so people want to be friends with Kelly. She has no trouble making friendships in the office. People love her. She's hilarious. Now, with all that hilarity and that fearless communication and confidence comes blind spots, some weaknesses, some things that aren't so good. So I want to cover the two things that I think people like this character really struggle with. So I think people like this lack self-awareness. They think what they say and do is always right, and they're not willing to look at how they show up when they get poor results. So even if people roll their eyes in a meeting after they said something, they're like, ah, it's okay, I'm confident, I'm doing the right things. I think another big blind set is highly reactive. Confidence can mean you have strong feelings and you're okay to show them, but that also means that sometimes we're not holding back. We're not leading with empathy, we're just saying whatever we think, and that can piss people off. So imagine you have a leader who's highly reactive. You do something wrong, they might snap at you, right? They may get angry with you versus someone who's a little bit more in tune with controlling their emotions and their feelings might do a better job in a leadership role. Now, you may be asking, well, what can a Kelly do to optimize their style? There's two things they can do. The first thing they can do is ask for feedback. If Kelly had just more frequently asked for feedback from Michael, from maybe Pam, who she respected or trusted, what could have happened? Could she have started to show up better? Could she have said the right things? Could she have moved up faster? Could she have gotten paid more? Could she have built more trust with the people around her? I think so. The second thing she could do is pause before speaking. Now, this is something I'm guilty of. I'm gonna admit it. I'm gonna be honest with you. I do it as well. I don't always pause before speaking. And we fail when we do that. Because what if we have something more intelligent to say if we just put another second of thought in? Or what if we don't have enough information and we need to think about a little bit more? Instead of just saying the first thing that pops in your brain, what if you just took 10 seconds, five seconds, two seconds to just literally think about what you were gonna say before you say it? This is something I'm working on. Now, Kelly, just like all the characters in the office, wasn't perfect, but she brings something unique to the office. She was crazy, but she was also very valuable. So, what I want to do now is wrap up and give you a challenge. I want you to try to figure out what your character was, and then I want you to figure out two blind spots. What are two things that you may be doing that are holding you back? Now, I know you've probably worked with someone like Mr. Nothing But Hard or Mrs. Perfection or Mr. People Pleaser or Mr. Wasted Potential or Mrs. Blind Confidence, and I know I have, and they aren't as crazy as the characters in the office, but they do have just as much to offer. And if you see yourself in one of those characters, don't worry. We all do. I see myself in a lot of those characters. Just make sure you're watching out for your blind spots, you're optimizing your style. And if you want to hear more weekly career and leadership insights from an actual leader, make sure to subscribe and follow. I want to say thank you so much for listening. Make it a great day.

Contributor

Austin Hopkins

Host