Introduction
This isn’t a post about stealing your colleague’s lunch from the fridge in the kitchen. You will also be disappointed if you came here for advice on what to do about people who park in disabled parking spaces without a permit. Rather, it discusses being honest with yourself and with people you have real, direct interactions with.
Honesty
There are many related words/phrases I could have chosen to base a blog post on in lieu of honesty. Courtesy, integrity, morality, etc. They are all worthy attributes but I somehow feel that honesty encompasses all of them. Rather than get into a deep philosophical discussion on truth and the ways of the world, I’d prefer to use some simple bullet points from the original 10 tenets post to keep things simple:
- Be honest with yourself in the first instance
- Only then can you be honest with colleagues, customers, friends and family
- Know when to put your hands up and say “I don’t know”
- Don’t bury things when you get something wrong, get it out in the open
- Know when it is time to change job
- Know when it is time to change career
- Ask for the same level of honesty from the people you deal with (this needs to be addressed differently depending on who we are talking about!)
- Ask for feedback about yourself from those people you deal with
- Make sure you get your yearly appraisal. This is the ideal opportunity for you and your line manager to align your goals with that of the company
Summary
In an era when people are all too keen to splash details of their personal life online, discussing what they’ve had for dinner, who they were out with the night before and what they think of their boss, many people are still unable to be as honest with themselves or with people when face to face and not hiding behind ‘the net’.
It is human nature for people to build walls to hide behind and sadly, the first casualty is often truth. I’ve found that my career has taken the biggest leaps forward when I’ve been honest with both myself and those around me.
Try being more honest with yourself and with the people you deal with. You may find it very liberating.
Till the next time.