Some people don’t believe in putting on a professional work face at work. They say it hides who they really are as a person and they want to be free to ‘express’ themselves. What a load of baloney! Sad to say that people like that only want an excuse to behave in a lose manner and they don’t really want to take responsibility for their actions as they put it down to ‘free expression’. While I am all for a person being themselves and saying it how it is but, I don’t believe it gives anyone the license to say whatever they wish, to whomever they wish and certainly not whenever they wish. Especially when those ‘expressions’ are about the stupid things they have done in the past. As a manager, if you have any staff members like this, you might be doing them a great favor by pointing a few home truths out to them.
For example. How many times as a manager have you heard one of your staff members bragging about how they have found a loophole in the system which they are exploiting and getting away with? No doubt, quite a lot of times. Or, how many times have you heard a staff member bragging about some other illegal or perhaps dubious practice he is or has been involved with? Or worse yet, have you as a manager bragged to your staff about something illegal or dubious that you have been involved in over the years? If you have, then it might be a good idea to put a lid on it. We all have our dark personal and professional moments. I know I have but the last thing I would ever do is brag about them to work colleagues. The simple reason being is that not all share the view of what’s done is done and someone you have told might deem it necessary to tell someone higher for the ‘greater good’ of the company. Be careful what you tell others about your past deeds no matter how long ago it was and certainly if you hear anyone else in your staff doing it, tell them the same.
Putting on a professional work face requires a bit of discretion on your part. If you are in a job for example that you simply hate or are sick of, for gods sake keep it to yourself. I learned this the hard way a long time ago. I mentioned to someone I thought I could trust that I was tired of the way the company was treating its employees and that I was thinking of looking elsewhere. The next thing I know I was apparently fired. I was told by someone lower than me. So I marched over to my bosses office and waited outside his office for a few hours until he saw me. I finally got it out of him who it was that told him what I said and the version he got was so exaggerated it resembled nothing of what was originally said. The person I trusted with my views turned out to be a real brown noser but he brown nosed himself right out of a job. The lesson I learned was to keep my feelings of dissatisfaction to myself and instead of bitching about it, try and do something to change things that I’m not happy with.
Your professional work face can be your best friend at work. It’s not hard to do. You just need to be quiet about the sides of you that only your family, girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife or drinking buddies should know about.
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