Surround Yourself with Positive People To Boost Your Career
I have been getting some wonderful blog submissions from freelance writers who have career wisdom to share. Sandra Mills is a freelance health and career writer. She likes helping people advance their careers and live healthier lives. I particularly enjoyed her piece below and I know you will as well. You can follow Sandra on Google+.
Many people say that it doesn’t matter so much where you work, but rather with whom you work. Your job is much more enjoyable if you’re surrounded by pleasant, fun, and helpful coworkers. Friendly chats by the water cooler, effective group work or fun office outings make the workday go by much faster. But did you know that positive and upbeat coworkers can actually boost your own career? Their optimistic energy rubs off on you, and you will be more likely to put in the time and effort to get ahead in your job.
It’s no secret that it takes more to be successful in your career than merely working hard and producing consistently good work. There are many more things to consider: you want to be innovative to get noticed, outstanding to become promoted, and alert to catch career advancement opportunities. Furthermore, it is crucial that you take advantage of all the training you can get and network as much as possible in your field. However, there’s more to climbing up the career latter than following these strategic moves.
Consultants Dorie Clark and Bob Legge told to Forbes that surrounding yourself with positive people will allow you to tap their positive energy. “That will fuel your won energy to learn, achieve and grow,” they explained. According to Wharton University professor Sigal Barsade and Dr. Donald Gibson, Dean of Dolan’s School of Business, people’s attitudes in the workplace directly affect job performance, teamwork, creativity, leadership, decision-making, turnover and negotiations. If the employees’ (and employers’) attitude is positive, it will have a positive impact on each individual worker and the company as a whole.
Similarly, a coworker’s bad attitude can have a decidedly negative impact in you. Negative colleagues spread their negativity by generating secondhand stress. Coworkers who are always busy, stressed or grouchy convey those feelings to everybody else in the workplace. This causes concerns among colleagues that “maybe I should be doing that, too, or maybe my stuff isn’t as important as his, or maybe he’ll be irritable if I interrupt,” says Jordan Friedman, a New York City stress-management speaker and trainer. Furthermore, it can in fact decrease productivity down as stressed people usually produce inferior work.
While positive people tend to perform better at work because the can process information with greater awareness, efficiency and accuracy, negative people dedicate too much time and energy into their negative mood, which prohibits them from obtaining the information they need to perform better. A positive attitude can make a person more responsive, whereas a negative one can cause a person to regard new information in a negative light. When it comes to teamwork, a negative attitude can shut down the creative process or stifle the overall workflow because it undermines collaboration and conversation in the workplace.
Especially true for fast-paced, demanding work environments like the healthcare field, law-enforcement, a single negative coworker can have a huge detrimental impact. For instance, a registered nurse has to cope with widespread staffing shortages, rapid changes in patient condition and constant technological advances, which translates into high stress levels. In addition, medical personnel like nurses work in teams and rely heavily on their colleagues to perform properly. In this medical scenario, the negative attitude of a co-worker may have really serious ramifications for both other employees and patients. On the other hand, positive colleagues will make the work of a nurse easier, safer and more efficient, which can result in positive career developments for him or her.
Seek out a work environment with positive workers or associate with the positive people in your workplace and avoid the negative ones. While positive colleagues will help, encourage and inspire you, negative colleagues will only cause you stress and impede your performance. Remember that a positive attitude goes a long way.
