Self-awareness in the workplace

Knowing the kind of worker you are and what your supervisor expects of you goes miles to ensure a cohesive environment, writes Tania Ngima

Different bosses have different management styles. As employees, the benefits of understanding your supervisor’s traits and management style will yield immense benefits in the long run. Even more important is learning your own traits and acquiring a sense of self-awareness.

Just as there are some things that make your boss glad to have you as part of the team, there are less admirable ones that may seem harmful, but probably drive him or her up the wall.

Overpromising

This tends to be accompanied by under delivering. And while once or twice we are all guilty of not delivering, sometimes due to factors under our control, consistently making promises you cannot keep will make people start to doubt your word. Integrity in the workplace is very important and if you cannot deliver as promised, always try to own up before time. This prepares people to make alternative arrangements.

If office pressure is the reason you keep finding yourself in this scenario, it may be important to prioritise and only focus on the more important tasks and delegate the others. Alternatively, you may approach your boss and try to find a solution, for example, understanding your key performance indicators and reviewing the goal setting process.

 

Too much drama

Being passionate about your work is all well and good, in fact it is encouraged. However, acting like the workplace is the place to act out all your emotions about every little thing gets tiring for both bosses and co-workers.

Avoid being too emotional or teary about things that really do not count, as well as airing complaints about every aspect of your work life.

Commonly used expressions like ‘1,000 per cent committed’ may be used as intention of commitment, but they will not show you in a positive light. Be aware of phrases that belong more in banter than in corporate speak such as ‘yeah’ and ‘you know’.

Taking responsibility

The worst thing you could do is to blame your mistakes on someone else. Equally worse is being sensitive to criticism or making excuses. As hard as it may be, it is better to own up in the part you had to play in the failure and come clean. Your boss will respect you even more if you show that you have taken the initiative of putting in measures to ensure the situation does not happen again.

In the same way, if something goes wrong at work, it is better to bring it to the boss’s attention sooner than later, depending on how serious it is. Trying to cover it up sometimes tends to blow up in our faces with serious repercussions.