Ask yourself: Do people like me?

You get promoted in this world because people like you, not because you get work done. There’s always more than one person who can get a job done. But everyone’s personality is different, so when you want to differentiate yourself at work, focus on your personality.

Showing the True You

In fact, a 2005 study published in the Harvard Business Review shows that people would rather work with someone they like who’s incompetent than someone who’s competent but not likable.

Keep in mind that “likable” is not as subjective as it seems. Most people in the office agree on who’s likable and who’s not. For example, most people like Bill Clinton — he just has a likable personality. Even the Bush family members, Clinton’s political polar opposites, say they like his personality.

So, if you want to get ahead at the office, you need to figure out how to make yourself likable. Usually, it’s not a matter of changing your personality, but rather making sure that your true personality shows through.

Ten Ways to Blow It

Then again, most people think they’re more likable than they really are, and therefore don’t try hard enough. There are many things that keep people from being likable — here’s a list of 10 of them:

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Many people are having a bad time in organizations today. It’s not simply those experiencing budget cuts and lay-offs. Many others are experiencing a deep sense of hurt and loss: loss of much of a life outside of work, loss of their hopes and expectations, loss of their trust in the future, loss of confidence in reaching their career goals. The cruelest hurt is the collective loss of belief that things will soon return to normal. In today’s cut-throat world of global competition and corporate greed, it’s hard to know what normal is.

So many losses at one time are hard to bear. When things go wrong like this, we usually get mad or we become depressed. And because we live in a “can do” society, far more people typically get mad. Anger also has a quality of energy that makes you feel that you’re doing something. Depression may follow, but at the beginning you feel buoyed up by that sense of righteous anger.

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