A few years ago, I tried to manipulate a situation in the workplace.
It was an email thread with a senior leader and multiple team members. I asked an innocent-seeming question in the email, with the intent that the senior leader’s response would:
- acknowledge and highlight my contribution to the success of the program
- show me up in a favourable light
- make me the centre of the attention.
The senior leader did not respond. But one of my colleagues pinged me directly and asked simply:
What was the intent of your email?
And in that moment, I realised that my colleague had seen straight through me – and knew what I was trying to do. He called me out on my deception – because that is what it was.
His question made me realise that no matter how clever you think you are when you are trying to manipulate someone, or when you try to contrive and sway a situation to your advantage, people will see straight through you.
And even if 90% of the people won’t see this and take what you’re doing/saying at face value, there will always be that one person who sees it with full clarity.
So the lesson here is this. If you care about how you are perceived and you want to remain trustworthy, then don’t manufacture situations to present yourself in a certain light. It’s just not worth it to have your colleagues and friends try to assess what your motives are.
#leadership #communication #selfawareness
