The Perils of Trying to Be Popular Your Employees I know, sounds ridiculous. If people hate you, you can’t get their cooperation, you can’t motivate them, they won’t help with reaching the unit’s goals and frankly, it makes for an unpleasant and stressful work place. So there are lots of good reasons why you want to be popular with your employees. But in a management position, you sometimes need to make decisions which aren’t popular wi...

Do You Need to be Likable to Your Employees? The dilemma set out in the previous post is whether, as a new supervisor, you should supervise a change to the work that everyone in your group wanted. You wanted to be likable and under pressure from Candice, your former colleague, now employee, you okayed the change. Candice drops by the next week. Candice: Hey, Mia. We released to the field three weeks earlier than we ever have. Looks like the chang...

Is It Better to Be Respected or Liked as a Supervisor? So, a promotion. Well done. You have taken over your old boss Albert’s job. You will now be supervisor to staff who, until you got this new job, were your colleagues. Honestly, this is a tough way to start in management. I think it’s actually easier to supervise people you don’t know in your first supervision job. But a promotion is a promotion and there is the whole thing about gift ho...

Costs of Taking a Stand Sometimes, you must speak up to maintain self-worth. In previous posts, we’ve discussed how to do that. However, no matter how successfully you pilot through your initial conversation, there will be costs which you need to prepare for and accept as part and parcel of deciding to speak out. Costs you might face Depends on your boss and how open your company is to change. The following list is generally in order of severit...

How to Take a Stand or Defy Convention Whether you take a stand on something is entirely up to you. Only you can decide that. But howyou defy convention can lower or increase the chances of continuing to earn a pay check. Plan Don`t do a spur of the moment, blow your gasket thing. It`s too important. Take a moment to think through what to say. Be clear. Sometimes, moral outrage can be diffuse. What exactly is bothering you? Is it the problem or t...

The Talkative -Silent Sweet Spot

The Talkative -Silent Sweet Spot In the previous posts, I’ve discussed how introverts and extroverts can operate successfully in a work environment. But I think that the most successful people find the talkative -introverted sweet spot. That is, they can call on either set of skills as the situation warrants. So, I’m doing one final example of a meeting. If you tend to extroversion, you should pay most attention to the left-hand col...

Self-confidence Done Right

Self-confidence Done Right In the previous post, your self-confidence blind-sided you when trying to solve a problem with your colleagues. You thought you had a solution but nobody would implement. What went wrong? Well, there were a couple of things: You assumed leadership: Normally, it’s a good thing to have someone in the group who wants to take ownership of the problem and come up with a solution. But because you are all peers, yo...

When Being Outgoing Can Do You In

When Being Outgoing Can Do You In As I have discussed previously, extroverts rule the roost in most work places. They earn more, get more promotions, and are generally more valued than introverts because of their willingness to lead and sometimes even their charisma. So, if you’re outgoing, you’ve got it made at work. Or so you might think. But before we get going, let’s agree on our terms. What is an extrovert? It is generally ag...

More Ways to be Successful with Shyness

More Ways to be Successful with Shyness In the last post, I discussed how to up your chances to get extra research money by taking a more active role in shaping how things roll out. There are other ways to be successful even with your shyness tendencies. Shyness prevents these extroverted actions Speaking up: There are undoubtedly situations where you have an opinion about how your unit should function. You typically might not engage in...

Feigning Extroversion

Feigning Extroversion In the last post, I gave you an example of when introversion can prevent you from being successful even if it’s not about salary or promotions. This is where feigning can come in. How feigning extroversion helps There were several times during that interaction when your introversion didn’t help you get the extra research money. I won’t replay the whole conversation, but pick some bits to discuss. Narita claim...