The days of being an executive grouch are over.
I heard about a woman who recently lost her job. She was relatively competent, but the reason she was fired came down to this: she wasn’t nice.
As soon as people started getting offended by her attitude and rude treatment of others, they also started finding more reasons to criticize her work. People started talking about her around the office, until eventually nothing she did was acceptable. The rudeness turned into people disliking her (and her work), and finally resulted in her getting fired.
Here’s the moral of the story: if you’re unpleasant and hard to work with, you could lose your job, no matter how competent you are.
In my experience, every famous actor I’ve met who continues to land big roles doesn’t have the “diva” attitude. They are considerate, humble, and great to work with, and that reputation has boosted their career.
Progressing upward in a company doesn’t come down to a popularity contest, but if you are well liked, well known, and well thought-of in your workplace, do you think that makes it easier or harder for someone to give you a raise? To recommend you?
Let me give you a tip I learned a long time ago: you won’t keep your job just because you’re nice, but you very well may lose your job if you’re not.
Pay it forward this week by working on building real relationships in your office. Take someone in your office out to lunch and show them that you care about them as a person. I promise, you won’t miss that hour that you spent investing in another person.
*Image courtesy jenny downing
As a speaker and author, Curtis Zimmerman has impacted over one million people with his life-changing messages and award-winning programs. Curtis is an expert at transforming organizations by inspiring individuals to live their lives at performance level.
Want to be inspired? Check out his podcast The Next 24 Hours.
