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We talked to a psychologist about how to communicate effectively with colleagues, resolve conflicts at work, speak up for oneself, and avoid burnout. It’s important to note that a person’s level of prosperity is not solely dependent on their work, as work can also impact their psychological well-being. Even if everything appears good on the surface, work can still be a source of chronic stress.
What actions can you take to climb the career ladder and increase your earnings?
It’s important to note that advancing on the career ladder and earning a lot of money isn’t enough. Avoiding burnout is equally important. Holding a leadership position and earning millions doesn’t mean much if a person is constantly burnt out and feeling terrible. Burnout can paralyze both work and personal life and nullify any success. It can significantly impact a person’s ability to work effectively or work at all.
There are no one-size-fits-all solutions to achieve career success. It largely depends on the specific organization, its values, and priorities. For instance, following instructions and not standing out may be valued in a state-owned company. Proactivity, creativity, and thinking outside the box are crucial in a startup, while interaction with other employees and creating a comfortable working environment may be prioritized in another organization.
To succeed in a particular team, it’s crucial to pay attention to important factors that aren’t explicitly stated in the work instructions. These can only be learned by observing colleagues, engaging in conversation, and researching the company’s history and public presence.
During the interview process, it’s possible to gain insight into the company’s values and assess the degree of difficulty involved in achieving success within such a work environment. Although not all information may be revealed, it’s still possible to learn about the company’s treatment of employees, product quality, and overall business conduct.
For example, interviewees can inquire about company events for employees, as well as the types of team meetings held, such as project wrap-ups, work progress reviews, one-to-one meetings, and mentorship from managers. Additionally, some companies may have internal conferences, hackathons, and supervision or intervision meetings for support specialists like psychologists. A company with a strong and healthy culture will prioritize such meetings rather than solely hosting a corporate party during the holiday season.
You can ask another helpful question about how much the employer invests in employee training. It’s essential to attend educational events both within the team and outside the company to upgrade your skills and better understand the brand values and unwritten rules.
Another question to ask is how long the previous employees worked in the offered position and if the turnover rate for this role is high, what could be the reason for this, according to the interviewer?
Overall, it’s crucial to observe, ask questions, think critically, and demonstrate frequently the qualities that you believe the company values.
How can you learn to present yourself effectively to gain the attention and recognition of others?
To take the first step, you need to identify your strengths and weaknesses and determine which qualities to improve and which activities to delegate to others to avoid wasting your time.
Begin by seeking feedback from your trusted friends and colleagues who have shown themselves to be fair, supportive, and constructive in their criticism. Receiving feedback from individuals who do not meet these criteria can be detrimental to your development and motivation to improve.
Start by writing down the strengths and weaknesses enumerated by participants in your small study. Additionally, add qualities that you believe the respondents may have missed.
Acknowledging qualities can be difficult – not only negative ones but also positive ones. Often, individuals tend to not notice or devalue their success, especially if they set high demands on themselves and have low self-esteem. If this applies to you, observe yourself and search for manifestations of qualities that respondents mentioned but you missed. You can even take notes in a notebook and discuss them with colleagues and loved ones.
The ideal option is to work with a psychologist on this as it is difficult to get rid of an overly critical attitude towards oneself alone. Psychotherapy is the most effective and fastest way to overcome this.
After accepting not only your mistakes but also your achievements, the next step is to communicate to others what you can do and how great your abilities are. This makes it easier for you to discuss what you are working on and the outcomes you are achieving.
What actions can you take when your boss fails to acknowledge you?
To diversify your risks, take the first step of ensuring that not only your boss but also other individuals, who may hold the same or higher positions, are aware of your achievements. For instance, you can present your accomplishments at a general meeting or try to get on the corporate mailing list.
Initially, promoting yourself may seem challenging, and you may have doubts like “Why should I do this?” or “What if they judge me negatively?” However, promoting yourself can benefit everyone involved. You showcase your skills, and your colleagues and management gain better insight into your abilities and strengths.
It is not advisable to approach higher management and complain about your boss not promoting you. Such behavior may make you appear like a complainer. But if you decide to speak to higher management, make sure to frame the discussion as a conversation about your potential in the company rather than a complaint against your boss. Proper preparation is crucial, including gathering information on your accomplishments, outlining your interests and plans, and discovering what opportunities the company may offer in the future.
How to enhance relationship-building with colleagues: Formal communication or friendship?
Although friendly relationships are considered more important, deep, and motivating than collegial ones in our culture, I do not recommend being friends. The latter format of interaction is much more useful for work than going out for a beer and discussing personal life together on Fridays.
As friendship develops, ambiguity in relationships arises. Criticism in work situations becomes challenging to provide objectively because you do not want to criticize and risk your friendship. The same applies to romantic relationships. Even if both parties are excellent professionals, discussing and strictly separating different types of relationships, like not talking about work at home and personal life at work, is too difficult, and very few people succeed in doing so. Therefore, I advise against mixing work and personal life to avoid situations where criticism is necessary in work.
Collegial relationships are not necessarily formal, distant, and emotionless. I see them like this: people like to do their tasks and work with other colleagues. They want to create something together, and for that, they do not have to delve into the intricacies of relationships with relatives.
Instead of wasting energy on personal conversations, I suggest directing it towards collaborative creativity related to work. Coming up with projects, streamlining work processes, mentoring, organizing internal events for exchanging experiences, and joint trips to industry events – all of these are manifestations of deep, productive collegial relationships.
Building Productive Relationships with Subordinates
When dealing with subordinates, the same principles that apply to colleagues also apply, but the additional complexity arises due to the vertical nature of the relationship. As the boss, you inherently hold power over your subordinate, which may tempt you to use it, while your subordinate may struggle to set boundaries. For instance, if a colleague of the same rank calls me late at night, I can easily choose not to answer. However, refusing a call from my boss, even if it’s about a personal issue, is much more challenging.
When a boss starts a personal relationship with a subordinate, it prompts the question: what needs is the boss trying to fulfill? Typically, the reason is that they are lacking something in their personal, romantic, or friendly relationships. In such instances, the boss should concentrate on enhancing those relationships. Occasionally, a boss may feel uneasy in their leadership role, struggling to set tasks and supervise their execution without overstepping their boundaries. In such situations, the boss should learn how to lead effectively, rather than concealing their discomfort and lack of necessary skills by forming relationships with their subordinates.
What to do with workplace conflicts?
It’s not worth panicking and avoiding them at all costs. Similar to personal relationships, when individuals stay silent about behavior they dislike, it doesn’t make the conflict vanish. Instead, it fosters hidden tension and mutual claims that impede collaborative work.
When the hidden conflict eventually surfaces – and this is inevitable, the question is only when – instead of constructive discussion, there’s an explosion of hurt feelings and claims of such force that finding a compromise becomes much more difficult. In addition, the atmosphere of passive aggression leads to burnout.
Therefore, it’s crucial to swiftly transition the conflict into a phase of open dialogue and resolution. Ideally, the company should have a procedure in place for conflict resolution that involves a mediator – an impartial person who helps both parties reach an agreement that considers their interests. For instance, an employee from another department or, in the case of a severe conflict among top managers, an external individual.
If there’s no conflict resolution procedure in place, the discussion should remain calm and constructive. Both parties should neutrally discuss the facts, avoid making accusations, and aim to find a solution that benefits everyone, not just one side. If this approach fails, the employee should approach their supervisor and say, “There’s a conflict that I can’t resolve. I’ve tried various methods, but they haven’t worked. Can you please assist me?” The employee should adopt this position instead of blaming the other party and demanding their termination.
If the conflict arises with the supervisor, the employee can seek help from a higher-level manager. Again, the employee should approach the situation constructively instead of portraying themselves as a victim. If no higher-level manager is available, there’s a high chance that the conflict will remain unresolved, and the employee may have to leave the company. In my opinion, this is a smaller risk than being in a prolonged conflict, feeling miserable, encountering hostility, and ultimately experiencing burnout. Such a situation benefits neither the employee nor the company.
How should you handle a situation where a colleague appears to be frequently delegating their tasks to you?
You need to investigate why you are accepting work that is not your responsibility. If your boss is consistently assigning it to you, it indicates that the company’s workflow is disorganized and requires discussion. If it’s a colleague at the same level as you, you may have personal boundary issues preventing you from declining. And if you are the boss and repeatedly performing tasks for your employees, either they are incapable or you are unable to delegate effectively.
These issues can and should be resolved through conversation. Not from the perspective of “this is not my job, take it, I won’t do it,” but from the perspective of “I have my own work that I need to complete, and this, as I understand it, is not my responsibility. Let’s determine how it’s being assigned to me and what can be done to prevent this from recurring.”
Through communication, you may discover that your understanding of the situation is not objective or comprehensive. When something bothers us, we often assume the worst. For instance, your boss may assign new responsibilities, and you may feel exploited. However, he may be assessing your ability to handle them in order to promote you in the future.
What distinguishes workaholism from a healthy passion for work?
A workaholic subjectively experiences a painful state. One of my clients expressed it as, “I can’t not work, but I can’t work anymore either.” This means that work controls them and consumes all their time and energy. Even if they physically rest, they still mentally check their work email and think about how to complete a particular task. As a result, their relationships with loved ones, other personal interests, and household tasks suffer.
In contrast, healthy enthusiasm for work does not consume one’s entire life. Although it is manifested at work, other areas of life, such as friends, family, and hobbies, still exist. One may be interested in working, but can always switch off, finish work for the day, and do something else. There is no feeling that “without work, I am nothing,” and self-esteem is not tied exclusively to professional success.
Individuals who are dissatisfied with their life “here and now” often develop workaholism. They do not feel fulfilled in other areas of life and are uncertain if they can influence this. For instance, how to find the love of their life and make older relatives respect them is not always clear. In contrast, work is convenient because it has clear rules: do this, and you will be successful, receive universal approval, and a pay raise.
How can burnout be prevented?
The corporate environment plays a crucial role in burnout, and it’s essential to understand that burnout is not the same as fatigue, and it doesn’t always occur due to overworking and inadequate rest. While workaholics are more vulnerable to burnout, other factors contribute to it as well.
Stress factors such as low salaries, poor relationships with colleagues, inability to influence one’s schedule, tasks, and workload, lack of feedback, and chaotic work processes, lead to burnout, regardless of the amount of work done.
In summary, if a company prioritizes results over its employees, fosters competition and uncertainty, and provides little feedback, the likelihood of burnout is high, and a person who was once enthusiastic and energetic may end up completely burnt out after a year of work.
To prevent burnout, individuals should identify the factors that negatively affect them and take steps to minimize them. For example, they can organize work processes more clearly, such as placing data for a report into one folder in advance, so that they do not have to reach out to numerous colleagues to gather information. It is also possible to optimize the work schedule by starting work later, shortening the workday, or switching to freelancing.
In some cases, stress is inherent to the job, such as for employees who deal with customer complaints. In such cases, individuals should consider how to become less sensitive to the stress and recover more easily after experiencing it. They can seek support from individual or group psychological counseling, such as discussing work situations. Additionally, individuals may want to undergo additional training, such as training on working with difficult and conflicting clients.
It’s essential to start working on stress factors before symptoms of burnout become apparent, such as loss of interest in work, fatigue, procrastination, attention problems, and irritability. If these symptoms are already present, individuals require immediate assistance to maintain their professionalism and overall health.
What are some ways to help an employee experiencing burnout?
Often a burnt-out employee is simply sent on vacation, but this almost never helps. If the stressor is not removed, the person will return to their previous state within a couple of days after the vacation.
The first step in recovery is to reduce the workload so that the person has the opportunity to rest and focus on themselves. Sometimes it makes sense to switch to part-time and take a pay cut. This is better than losing the ability to work altogether and simply being fired one day with no money and no plans.
The second step involves visiting a psychologist and analyzing the specific cause of the burnout in the job. Perhaps the schedule is unsuitable, or communication with colleagues is difficult. Or maybe the individual is taking on too many tasks.
The third step is to remove the stressor or reduce it as much as possible. For example, switch to another department, delegate some of your functions, go to another company or become a freelancer.
How to find the optimal balance between work and personal life?
A person’s individual characteristics are the primary factor in determining work-life balance, rather than gender or age. It depends on their lifestyle and values, such as engaging in sports or maintaining family relationships. It is crucial to have something important beyond work, which will vary among individuals.
Additionally, the nature of the work plays a role. Identifying what specifically depletes and causes stress helps in choosing the appropriate form of relaxation. For instance, if one is a psychologist who regularly communicates with clients, spending every weekend with friends may not be the best choice. It would be better to spend one evening with them and allocate the rest of the time to activities like walking alone in the park, reading a book, or pursuing a hobby.
Take the case of a doctor who may receive emergency surgery calls at any moment. It is crucial for them to establish clear boundaries between their work and personal life to ensure that their medical practice does not interfere with their leisure time or time away from the operating room. Failure to do so could lead to work consuming all their thoughts and time, making it difficult for them to disconnect and relax, ultimately resulting in burnout.
Similarly, freelancers who work remotely face a comparable challenge. The line between their work and personal life is often ambiguous. They can begin working at different times, including in the evenings, and can easily be distracted by household chores. Due to this uncertainty, many freelancers feel guilty, unproductive, and lazy when they are not working or resting. Setting strict time frames is beneficial, and creating a work schedule that outlines when and where they work and when they rest is ideal.
In this scenario, freelancers become their own employers, and it is important to have a humane approach to self-employment that prioritizes rest and self-care. It is vital to take breaks and incorporate personal time into their life as they cannot accomplish all the work and earn all the money in the world. Freelancers should remind themselves that they are in a marathon, not a sprint, and maintaining a steady pace is critical for long-term success.
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