7 Deadly Workplace Sins (And How to Avoid Them) Part 2

In my last post I listed the first four workplace sins:

• Gossiping
• Anti – Social behavior
• Sloppy work, and
• Perfectionism.

Here are the last three to add to the list:

• Doing it all: I guarantee you know at least on person who is the only person that does work at their job. To hear them tell it, no one else ever does anything. They have overwhelming responsibilities, which they barely get done because they always have to help someone else, or rush in at the last minute to fix everything. Sound familiar? Trying to do it all, without enlisting the right help or resources is tiring at best and ineffective at worst. It’s expected to pitch in and to have to do more than your share occasionally, but if that has become your way of work, you may be treading dangerous waters. It might feel good to be “needed”, but you could be putting yourself in a box – being the only one who can do your job can keep you from getting promoted to a new opportunity. If you are the Wonder Woman or Superman of your office, learn to delegate.

• Making it all about you: Showing off, constant bragging, putting down other people and their ideas, making your self the focal point of every conversation. There’s a right and a wrong way to practice the art of self-promotion and the difference lies in the intent and the delivery. If your intent is to compare yourself to other people in a manner that makes them appear less than competent, that’s a problem. Proper self-promotion, aims to help you stand out based on you and your qualities alone – it doesn’t take anything away from anyone else. There is also an art to the timing of when you create an opportunity to promote yourself – it should never be at someone else’s expense. The ultimate balance here is confidence laced with humility. If you have developed a reputation as someone who is overly focused on themselves, make a better effort to:

• listen more and talk less
• recognizing the contributions of others
• offer genuine compliments
• invite others to share their opinion.

• Procrastinating:  In addition to adding a huge amount of stress to your workday, putting things off until the last minute opens the door for unnecessary drama and negative attention. There’s a limit to how many times your fellow co-workers will jump in to bail you out at the 11th hour. And it will only be a matter of time before they turn a deaf ear to your complaints about deadlines and workload. If you’ve developed a habit of procrastinating then you might find your self passed over for highly visible projects and promotions. There are number of reasons that people procrastinate: fear or failure, fear of success, and not knowing where to start for example. The best way to break free from procrastination is to do some honest reflection around the reason you are not moving forward.

There are two common threads among these seven workplace sins: 1) they can sabotage your career and 2) you can fix them. Is there one sin that’s causing you more problems than the others? Start there. To increase your chances of turning things around work with a coach or accountability partner for honest feedback and to keep you on track.