~by Haley Lynn Gray~
Most careers aren’t damaged by dramatic failures. They’re limited by small, repeated behaviours that nobody quite tells you about — because telling you would be awkward, and it’s easier to simply stop putting you forward.
Here are the ones I’ve watched do the most damage, from both sides of the desk.
1. Bringing your mood to work
Everyone has bad days. The difficulty is arriving with whatever happened in the car park and distributing it around the office.
People remember how you make them feel far longer than they remember what you produced. The colleague who is unpredictable — fine one day, sharp the next — gets managed around, and being managed around is the quiet end of a career.
This matters more the more senior you are. If you lead anyone, your mood is the weather.
2. Missing deadlines quietly
Not missing them — everyone misses some. Missing them *silently*, so the first anyone knows is when the thing doesn’t arrive.
Say on Tuesday that Thursday won’t happen, and you’re someone with a problem. Say nothing until Friday, and you’re the problem.
3. Complaining without proposing
A person who identifies problems is useful. A person who only identifies problems becomes exhausting within about three months.
Bring the issue and one suggestion, even a flawed one. It changes entirely how the same information is received.
4. Treating people differently by rank
Charming to the boss, dismissive to whoever can do nothing for you. Everyone notices, including the boss — and nobody has ever been promoted for it.
5. Making yourself the only one who can do it
Hoarding knowledge feels like security. It isn’t: it makes you unpromotable, because moving you creates a hole nobody can fill.
The people who advance are the ones who document what they do and train a replacement. Being indispensable in one seat is how you stay in it.
6. Gossiping
Whoever hears you discussing a colleague quietly concludes that they’re next. It costs more than it’s ever worth.
7. Never asking for anything
The reverse failure, and it’s common among women in particular. Working hard, waiting to be noticed, and assuming the raise or the project will arrive on merit.
It largely doesn’t. Almost everything is negotiable, and asking is how it starts.
If you employ people
Tell them. Specifically, privately and early.
Most people doing these things have no idea they’re doing them, because everyone found it easier to say nothing and quietly stop considering them. The kind thing is the uncomfortable conversation, six months before it becomes a decision.
