Career-limiting missteps you should avoid like the plague

Colouring hair must be restricted to industries like entertainment. PHOTO | FILE 

By SERAPHINE RULIGIRWA-KAMARA

In Summary

• Do not allow your good performance to stand in way of success.

Mirror Mirror on the wall...?” You could complete this question in infinite ways. Am I really unkempt? Am I unreliable? Rude?

Don’t I deserve a raise or promotion? Abrasive? A lone-ranger? Do I look tarty? Why can’t my team members just do what they are hired to do – co-operate and gel with me as a team?

These questions come up often in my coaching sessions. While every work environment is unique, requiring, well thought-out conduct, certain principles are basic.

They are values that run through wherever you add value as a student, executive or entrepreneur. If you have to ask anyone these and other questions in response to a perception of you, you want to consider these very common possible reasons for it.

The truth is that you would not need to second-guess yourself if you were sending the message you want others to get about you. If you have to ask, then you are in doubt about your actions or inactions and when in doubt, the following don’ts can help.

1. Do not colour your hair purple and tie it in great big afro-fusion braids if you are looking to make a partner and occupy the big corner office at the conservative corporate law firm where you work.

If, however, you are an artist, your eclectic taste may earn you a thousand and one brownie points.

2. Do not hit the send button unless you are sure your wording and tone is right for that e-mail message. He/she may have attacked your credibility, undermined your authority and quite honestly, the Human Resource people really must address this level of insubordination.

Acknowledge it and sleep on it if you need to.

Responding to negative e-mails requires time. Calm down and be sure that your response sends the right message with regard to your capability, authority and dignity. This means no sarcasm, no profanity, no capitals, no bold, no red colour and certainly no triple exclamation marks.

3. Do not expect or demand a pay increase simply because you have been around since the turn of the century. It is about your productive output, not the length of your tenure. You and I know that there are people who stay on for long but when they leave, it is unnecessary to replace them because they have not been doing much around.

4. Do not start deliberately displaying the fact that you are looking for greener pastures by overtly sprucing up your resume during your employer’s time and using company resources to do so.

Alright, so you’ve been working very hard, you have not only met but surpassed every target ever set and yet besides the hefty commission or bonus payments, you take home and a few perfunctory appreciation letters, you have remained at the same job grade for five years.

What do these people want? They obviously do not appreciate you, right? Wrong. What is the grade and/or position you would like to serve at? What does it require of you?

My experienced guess is that you are waiting for the position to come before you can look, speak, think, walk and talk what as required. With that attitude, you are going to wait another five to 50 years unless the world stands still for you. Do you ask the car to run before you fuel it? Nope! It does not work that way.