3 Habits That Kill Your Credibility at Work

Whether you’re just starting out in your career or you’re years in, the habits you develop at work can massively influence your success-both in your current role as well as throughout your career. While positive habits can make it easier to build credibility, less constructive ones may prove inhibitive to building relationships, gaining influence in your team and company, and ultimately progressing in your career.

If you catch yourself picking up any of the following habits, use the following tips to recover before it becomes damaging:

Procrastinating

Some people can’t help but procrastinate, and some of us operate at our highest level when put under time pressure. But regardless of your working style, being known as a procrastinator at work can damage your reputation if not handled appropriately.

If you’re that person who’s always running around to avert a crisis, for example, colleagues and managers may be reticent to hand over time-sensitive or stressful projects-which are sometimes the projects which will win you a raise or greater visibility within the company.

Over-apologizing

Don’t take this in the wrong way: There is a time and place for apologizing. However, apologizing for everything that goes wrong, no matter how big or small, can erode your colleagues’ confidence in your abilities (not to mention your own self-confidence).

In order to course-correct, start by monitoring yourself for when the habit shows up. Being mindful of your own behavior can help, but you might also ask friendly colleagues to point it out for you. Once you have a better understanding of when you fall into apologizing, prepare in advance for those situations by reframing your “sorry” as something more positive. Lastly, take note of your colleagues’ reactions, which can often function as positive reinforcement that you’re heading in the right direction.

Overusing jargon

When it comes to missing the mark on your communication style, the overuse of jargon and/or pretentious-sounding vocabulary is a key offender which can quickly undermine your credibility.

If you leave people guessing at what you’re trying to say, they’ll likely miss the point entirely and may take your word choice as evidence that you’re trying to cover up lack of actual knowledge with fancy phrasing. Less experienced employees sometimes adopt this habit (often unintentionally!) to compensate for the fact that they’re still learning, but this will only get you so far and will likely annoy your colleagues along the way.

Originally published at https://thenetworkedpros.com on November 19, 2020.