You might forget the colleague you helped before a deadline. The colleague probably won’t. You might dismiss a sarcastic remark you make as harmless. The person on the receiving end could remember it when someone asks whether you would make a good manager. Our behavior has a way of traveling ahead of us—and eventually finding its way back.
What ‘Workplace Karma’ Really Means
Call it “workplace karma.” Whatever you put out can return like a boomerang through your reputation, relationships and the opportunities people offer—or withhold. That doesn’t mean every generous employee gets promoted or every toxic boss gets exposed. Workplaces aren’t perfectly fair. But your everyday behavior helps shape the environment you work in and the experience others associate with your name.
Here, karma is a metaphor for consequences, rather than a claim about spiritual traditions or cosmic justice. The practical mechanisms are familiar: reciprocity, trust, social learning and reputation. READ MORE
Source: forbes.com
Every November, I pull out my personality assessments and reread them. I collect them the way some people collect wine: enthusiastically, and with strong opinions about each one. Blame my Enneagram 7 for signing me up for every one, and my ENTJ for arguing with every report.
No one person has the answer to everything. Without other viewpoints critical thinking diminishes, staff feel powerless to share their views, and danger arises of the culture becoming cultlike rather than collaborative.
I hear it almost every day. A senior executive has had enough. Too many meetings. Decisions that should take a week take three months. Another reorganisation has moved the boxes without changing very much. Sometimes the real problem is simpler: a new boss whom they neither trust nor respect. Then comes the sentence: “I think I will do some consulting.”