Five Things Highly Intelligent People Never Reveal About Themselves At Work
Turns Out Honesty Might Not Always Be The Best Policy At Work
Building a strong professional network requires us to share aspects of our lives and personal opinions with others. However, walking the fine line between opening up to form social connections at work and cringe-worthy over sharing remains a tricky affair many grapple with.
In fact, having the high emotional intelligence or emotional quotient (EQ) to navigate the social politics at the workplace has been found to be a pivotal to success. EQ is the individual’s ability to identify, evaluate, control and express emotions in a social setting. Essentially, it guides how we manage our behaviour, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions to achieve positive outcomes we seek, often being social inclusion.
Gleaning from the sage advice by Dr Travis Bradberry, the co-author of Emotional Intelligience 2.0, we sieve out five opinions and topics emotionally intelligent workers will never reveal in the workplace that will hopefully help you navigate the workplace politics with greater poise and ease.
Discussing The Incompetency Of Others
Contrary to popular belief, not everyone always wants to be privy to all your opinions. In particular, there is nothing to gain by broadcasting other people’s ineptitude. Openly discussing your colleague’s shortcomings risks coming across as an insecure attempt to make you look better. Eventually, your callousness may even backfire and reflect badly on you.
How Much They Hate Their Job
Work is stressful enough without having to deal with a Debbie Downer constantly complaining about how much they abhor their job. Constantly lamenting about your misery at work makes for highly unpleasant company and unconsciously labels you as a negative person instead of a team player. Perceptive bosses will be quick to catch on to the naysayers dragging down company morale and often keep a look our for more enthusiastic and positive replacements.
How Much They Are Getting Paid
Disclosing how much you rake in every month with your co-workers while not officially illegal only serves to breed negativity and comparison. While some argue that promoting free discussion of compensation helps expose discrimination and unfair pay practices, in reality, it is impossible to allocate salaries with perfect fairness.
Revealing your salary gives your co-workers a direct measure of comparison and naturally, your work will be gauged against your level of income as well as their own. As such, it is never a good idea to give in to the temptation to swap salary figures with a buddy out of curiosity.
That They Intend To Switch Jobs
One of the common rookie mistakes in poker is giving away your hand to early. Similarly, prematurely broadcasting your plans to leave, especially without having a job lined up, is a sure-fire indicator to your company to shift their focus away from investing time and energy into you toward keeping an eye out for a promising replacement. Since there’s also a chance that your job search will be unsuccessful, it’s best to keep a poker face and wait until you’ve found a job before informing anyone.
Telling Offensive Jokes
Having a sense of humour is no doubt an essential social asset and helps to break up the monotony at work. According to the workplace expert and author of ‘Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant’, Lynn Taylor, “well-placed humour that is clever and apropos to a business situation always enhances an employee's career”. However, if not tastefully done, it also runs the risk of you crossing the line and offending a co-worker, making them feel terrible while you come across as insensitive and nasty.
According to Bradberry, “a joke crosses the line anytime you try to gauge its appropriateness based on how close you are with someone. If there is anyone who would be offended by your joke, you are better off not telling it.” It turns out it might be better ot be safe than sorry in this case.
Read the entire list here
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