Career killers
Even small mistakes can be costly in the workplace
There are many things that can kill people’s careers, and even small mistakes often carry serious consequences down the road. We usually only hear about the most egregious examples, but most people don’t go down in a blaze of glory; they kill their careers in subtle, decidedly undramatic ways.
A recent survey by VitalSmarts found that 83 percent of respondents had seen someone make a blunder that had catastrophic results for their career, reputation or business, and 69 percent acknowledged they had done something that damaged their careers. Of those:
31 percent said it cost them a promotion, a raise or a job.
27 percent said it damaged a working relationship.
11 percent said it destroyed their reputation.
Little things can add up over time and undermine your career just as much as one huge lapse in judgment. Stay aware of these blunders before they creep up and kill your career:
Over-promising and under-delivering
It’s tempting to promise the moon to your colleagues and your clients, especially when you’re hardworking and believe that you can do it. The problem is that there’s no point in creating additional pressure that can make you look bad. If you promise to do something ridiculously fast and you miss the deadline by a little bit, you’ll likely think that you did a good job because you still delivered quickly. But the moment you promise something to someone, they expect exactly that.
You end up looking terrible when you fall short, which is a shame, because you could have done the same quality work in the same amount of time with great results if you’d just set up realistic expectations from the beginning.
Complacency
How long has it been since you proactively learned a new skill, reached out to your networking contacts or even polished your resume? If you can’t remember, you might have become a bit
complacent, and complacency is a real career killer.
If you’re always too busy to learn something new or to expand your network, you’ve got your priorities mixed up. However, if you make continuous growth and development a priority, you’ll be ready for whatever comes your way.
Fear of change
Fear of change is complacency’s evil twin. It actively works to keep things the same. I’m sure you’ve seen this one first hand at work when someone uttered the dreaded words, “But we’ve always done it this way.”
Things are changing too fast these days to latch on tightly to the status quo, and the costs of doing so can be huge. Surveys show that managers find that the most successful employees are the ones who can adapt to the changing workplace.
Having an inflatable ego
Did you ever work with someone who had a string of successes and started thinking that he or she was a star? Success is great. It definitely boosts your career, and it feels really good. The problems start once you let it go to your head. You start thinking that success is going to last forever and that you’re entitled to it.
Never, ever be content with resting on your laurels.
Losing sight of the big picture
It’s easy to become head-down busy, working so hard on what’s right in front of you that you lose sight of the big picture. But smart people learn how to keep this in check by weighing their daily priorities against a carefully calculated goal.
It’s not that they don’t care about small-scale work; they just have the discipline and perspective to adjust course as necessary.
Negativity
Sometimes when you’re feeling negative and down, your mood can leak out and affect other people. People who spread negativity through their department and complain about the work or other people complicate things for everyone else.
If people always have to tiptoe around you so as not to risk poking the bear, they are unlikely to be willing to do it for very long.
Low emotional intelligence
Everyone knows that you can get fired for being unable or unwilling to play nicely with others, but what trips up a lot of people is having a poorly developed poker face. If everyone can tell when you’re bored or irritated or that you think something a colleague says is stupid, this will catch up with you.
Emotional outbursts, belittling others, shutting co-workers down when they speak, low self-awareness and just generally being difficult are other ways that a lack of emotional intelligence will do great harm to your career.
Playing politics
Working hard to build strong work relationships is very different from instigating conflict, choosing sides, undermining colleagues, spreading rumors and all of the other things that fall under the umbrella of “playing politics.” If you find yourself feeling embarrassed about any of your tactics, you likely are playing politics.
Stick to strategies you’d be proud to discuss in front of your colleagues.
It’s easy to become head-down busy, working so hard on what’s right in front of you that you lose sight of the big picture.