Working Hard Is Not Enough

I had a meeting with my boss yesterday about a matter unrelated to this post, however he said one thing that stuck in my mind. “The company doesn’t promote people because they work hard or get the job done – there are hundreds of people out there who will work hard and get the job done just as well as anyone else. When it comes to promotions, the company looks for people who are able to rise above the day-to-day rubbish that goes on and show leadership and other qualities that are more than just the ability to work hard.”

This was a bit of a revelation for me because although there is little chance of promotion in my current organisation, I have always felt that it was important for me to develop skills that went beyond being able to work fast and efficiently – as my boss said, there are hundreds of people out there who can offer that.

I read a lot of books about human behaviour, workplace behaviour, motivation and psychology, and I find it invaluable when trying to navigate the many personalities that you will encounter in a workplace. I am constantly trying to further develop my interpersonal skills to improve my ability to build relationships, navigate social contexts, and for my own sake as well as those around me, ‘keep the peace’ in the office without being so nice that everyone just finds you irritating. Both luckily and unfortunately for me, I am a woman, so I am attuned to all the extra little idiosyncrasies that women bring to work (which personally I find make them more challenging to deal with than men).

There are three traits/skills that I believe are critical for people who become leaders or managers in an organisation, and three things I am trying to constantly instill in myself:

1. Active listening (I have previously read you should listen 80% of the time and only talk 20% of the time. I’m about 50/50 at the moment so I need to work on this!)

2. High level of emotional intelligence (some people disagree that EI even exists, however at the very least, a manager or leader should have the ability to understand how an individual’s emotional expression in the workplace affects themselves and the people around them, and manage that appropriately – more examples on this in my next blog post)

3. Awareness (from my experience, many complaints about managers start with “can’t he/she SEE [what is going on]/[how much work I do]/[that Julie doesn't do any work]/[that it's a hard environment to be productive in]??” – being aware of your staff, how they feel and what is actually going on in their environment goes very far in managing conflict and fostering happy and productive employees)

Lots of people can work hard. I’ve had many ineffective managers (and not just in my opinion) who don’t have the above 3 traits/skills. If you’re a manager or leader, ask yourself what qualities you have above the people who didn’t make it into your position. Are you one of the people who just worked the hardest, possibly stepping on others to get your job, or are do you truly possess a higher level of soft skills as well as hard skills that make you the best manager in the world?

One day I’d like to be that best manager in the world, and maybe have one of my staff give me a coffee mug that says so. Like a mother vows to do better for her daughter than her own mother did, I vow to treat my (future) staff better than I was treated by my managers.