Building credibility requires more than just competence and knowledge. — What erodes credibility at work and what builds it? Most employees don’t think about credibility consciously which prevents them from taking the right steps to build it. They think that if they keep their heads down and keep doing the good work, someone will take notice and good opportunities will…

Occasional errors in thinking make us form an inaccurate view of reality and stick with it, thereby impacting our behaviors and actions — In part 1 on cognitive distortions, I wrote about the five cognitive distortions that impact your decision-making by impairing your ability to think clearly. In this article, I will cover five cognitive distortions that impact communication: Heaven’s reward fallacy

An important factor to work with others is to not only care about your own needs but also what the other person wants — What kind of relationship do you have with your manager? Is it a thriving one or are you barely surviving? Most people attribute a poor relationship with their manager to be the manager’s fault. If the relationship isn’t working, the manager must either be bad, uncaring, or downright incompetent.

Not everything you say will stand out. But you can’t make a difference unless you’re also willing to risk voicing your opinion — For every step forward you take in your career, how many steps are you taking back? Do you actively recognize and pay attention to mistakes that limit your career? Those who succeed at work do not have special skills and abilities. They aren’t more intelligent or talented than others. What…

Disagreements can save time and energy by preventing critical mistakes and course correcting before it’s too late — What do you do when you disagree with your manager or someone senior? Do you voice your opinion, or do you choose to keep quiet? Speaking truth to power is a rare skill. Telling someone above you that they’re wrong requires courage and confidence. Holding your tongue and staying silent…

You can’t go back in time and fix your overreaction, but you can certainly build emotional agility — move on with curiosity, courage, and compassion. — Workplaces are filled with moments when it’s easy to lose your calm. Uncontrollable, sudden, and intense emotions that overwhelm you, can dramatically and unexpectedly lead to an emotional outburst. Negative emotions like anger, fear or frustration show up when your expectations aren’t met or people say or do things that…

You need a system in place to measure yourself and actively monitor how you’re doing — How do you get better as a manager? You can use feedback from your manager, inputs from your team, and outcomes you achieve as a measure of your performance, but by themselves, they do not help you get better. Without a system in place to measure yourself and actively monitor…

Help your managers become better leaders by giving them the feedback they need — Giving feedback to your manager can be tricky. What if they don’t like what you say? What if they take it the wrong way? What if they turn against you? People refuse to give candid feedback to their managers because they don’t want to put their jobs at risk. This…

Great leaders can see the greatness in others when they can’t see it themselves — It’s frustrating as a manager to see a highly talented employee waste their potential. They have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do well, so why aren’t they performing as well as they could? They have shown they’re capable more than once — solved problems creatively, drove large projects to…