Ten Career-Damaging Habits You'll Never Know You've Got

When my middle son was in tenth grade, I saw him pull a paperback book out of his backpack. “What are you reading?” I asked him. He told me. “My Language Arts teacher recommended this book,” he said, “and it’s awesome.”

“Why don’t you tell her that you took her recommendation?” I asked him. “I’ll bet she’ll be happy to hear that.”

“No,” said my soft-spoken son. “I’d better not tell her. She’ll get too excited and make a big deal out of it.”

A pang went through my heart. That’s just the kind of thing I would do, if I were a Language Arts teacher and a kid told me that he was reading a book I’d recommended. I’d get excited and make a big deal out of it. Oh no!

My kid gave me feedback that day without intending to. He reminded me that not everybody likes to have a fuss made over them. It’s hard to get good feedback. Most of us stumble around doing our best without much in the way of compassionate guidance.

Our bosses are the people who make decisions about our career advancement, and even they won’t always tell us the truth about career-limiting habits that can hold us back. I have managed many people, and I can tell you that it can be very challenging to let someone know when they’re shooting themselves in the foot.

It’s easy to say “Your report had some errors in it.” It’s much harder to say “At times, you can have trouble knowing when to stop talking.”

Here are few feedback-giving tips that have worked for me:

·         Rather than say “You need to stop doing X” you can wait until an employee asks for feedback, and then say “As I think about it, at times you may have a tendency to do X. That might get in your way. Does that sound like it’s on target?”

·         When you have compassionate feedback to deliver, you can say “I need your help. I want you to tell me something that you’d like me to do differently. I have some feedback for you and I want to get your feedback at the same time.” When my employee shares his or her feedback with me — perhaps the comment “I know you’re from New Jersey, and it shows because you talk so fast sometimes that I can’t understand you” and sees that I take it calmly and with gratitude, it becomes easier for him or her accept my feedback, too.

·         You can ask permission to give feedback to an employee. You can say “Listen, Jane, I had a thought about something that you could try that might be useful for you, but I don’t want to start giving you suggestions if you don’t want them.” Sometimes your employee will say “Honestly, I’m overwhelmed right now and I couldn’t take it in.” That’s fine. Sometimes they’ll say “Tell me! I want to hear it.”

Here are ten career-damaging habits you may have without knowing it!

Not Listening When Other People Speak

Most of us have worked at some point with a person who can articulate their thoughts very well. The minute they stop talking, though, they tune out. You can tell just by looking at them that they’re not listening. Their mind is someplace else. It’s rude and it doesn’t make for an effective give-and-take when someone cannot attend to another person’s words. Be sure that person isn’t you!

Not Following Through on Your Commitments

Plenty of eager-beaver young business people have started their careers on a great note, only to run into roadblocks when the people around them noticed that they’re all talk and no action. These folks don’t follow through on their commitments.

They make confidence-inspiring statements like “You can rely on me, boss” and then don’t take care of whatever they were charged with taking care of. They don’t seem to notice that the acknowledgment and career advancement they seek is tied to actual results, not to knowing the right business jargon and slapping the right backs.

Gossiping

Nothing kills a promising career faster than being identified as a gossip-monger. There are way more exciting things happening in any organization than whatever people whisper behind other people’s backs about.

Sucking the Air Out of the Room

Some folks are insecure and show it by needing to have the floor at every moment and needing to express their opinions on every topic. We say about such people “S/he sucks the air out of the room!” Once they start talking, they can’t stop.

Being Abrasive

Business happens in a professional setting, but social interaction goes on all the time in the business world. People who are nasty and abrasive to deal with don’t do as well in their careers as people who keep an even tone and try to respect the views of others. We all get frustrated, but the folks who can still manage a smile and the words “please” and “thank you” show their substance when things around them are going crazy

Being Two-Faced

There is almost nothing worse than telling one person what you think they want to hear and then telling the next person something completely different. In the business world as in life, you have to speak your truth consistently in order to be trusted or respected.

Being Forgetful

If you are forgetful, no one will hold it against you if you take steps to outweigh your forgetful tendencies with note-taking and reminders to keep balls from dropping on the floor. Your forgetfulness will become a problem if you leave people hanging. It’s up to you to come up with a system to keep track of your to-do items or ask for help in doing so.

Getting Defensive 

At work we are all expected to be able to deal with viewpoints that are different from our own without bristling or becoming defensive. We are expected to be able to talk about issues without needing to be right — in fact, without needing to reduce every discussion to an argument over who’s right and who’s wrong. People who get defensive suck time and emotional energy away from the group when that energy is needed to move the company’s goals forward!

Needing to Have the Last Word

A sure sign of an immature business person is when someone must have the last word in every conversation. Sometimes it’s “I told you so!” and other times it’s “If you’re not going to take my advice, why did you ask my opinion?” We expect business people to be able to disagree graciously.

Putting Other People Down

The last career-damaging habit on our list is the habit of putting other people down, something that has never helped a relationship thrive or led to a better business result. “I can’t agree with you there, Roseanne” is fine but “See, that’s why you’re a Team Leader and I’m a Manager, Roseanne” is not. Your brand is not just your job title or your college degree; you show your values in the way you treat people around you, every day.

How can you determine whether one or several of these career-damaging habits is getting in your way? Ask for feedback. Ask your colleagues, your friends and your sweetheart to let you know when stress or nerves throws you off balance and makes you do or say something you wish you hadn’t.

Like all of us, you’re a cake that is still baking. You’d be grateful if your friend told you when you had lettuce in your teeth. Tell your friends “Listen, if I say something obnoxious or stupid, I’m relying on you to let me know!” and when the do it, thank them for keeping you on your path!

Source: Liz Ryan, www.forbes.com