I’ll never forget Judith. Halfway through college, I took a job in an office for the summer to pay the bills and get some experience.
Boy did I get some experience.
As the boss showed me around the office, I could feel the eyes of one woman sizing me up. Not two minutes after I sat at my desk, she was there.
“Well, if you won’t introduce yourself, I guess I’ll have to take the initiative. My name is Judith. I’ll tell you at the end of the week whether I’m pleased to meet you.”
I was speechless. But it was only the beginning. Judith peppered my first few days with five-minute visits in which she “brought me up to speed” on the dynamics of the office. Don’t trust Jim with anything. Watch out for Nancy, she’s gunning for your job. Karen is worthless, don’t listen to a thing she says. No thanks needed—you’ll have plenty of opportunity to repay me.
I quickly realized that she was paying similar visits to everyone else, and her cutting gaze let me know that I was the subject of those meetings, no doubt accused of all the same things as Jim, Nancy, and Karen.
I began to feel inadequate, unworthy, and powerless—and therefore to BE those things. She was murdering my productivity and my morale. And I wasn’t alone. Judith was spinning a web of personal power around the entire office, and all of us, even those who had worked there for years, hung paralyzed in its threads.
It was just the first of my exposures to the power and manipulation of office politics, but I knew by the end of the summer that I would have to learn to respond effectively because Judith’s power plays and their effect on my self-confidence made me less effective, less productive, less valuable to the company.
If you are a victim of aggressive power players, build your OWN confidence by doing what you say you’re going to do and rewarding yourself for it. When you live your word, your confidence grows and you live your word better.
As your self-confidence grows, decide to approach your executives with confidence with solid solutions—NOT GRIPES. Find at least one problem that you can solve every week, write out why it costs the company, describe a few solutions and the one you recommend.
This begins the process of turning self-confidence into reasons for others to be confident in you—and all the Judiths in the world can’t prevail against that kind of power.
Your executives WANT you to be powerful in helping them find solutions. Don’t be shy about giving them what they want—because it’s also what YOU want!