Travis Bradberry* says there may be good reasons why people don’t take you seriously — things that can often be easily fixed.
Do you ever feel like nobody takes you seriously at work? If so, you’re not alone.
More than 50 per cent of people don’t feel respected at work, according to a global survey of more than 20,000 employees by the Harvard Business Review.
Maybe colleagues ignore your input in meetings; perhaps they interrupt you or don’t include you in important decisions.
It’s easy to blame that on a bad boss or a toxic work environment and in some cases, that’s even true.
However, if you really want to be taken more seriously at work, you should start by looking in the mirror and doing what you can to increase your influence.
Here are some things you can do right now to increase your credibility.
Don’t let your statements sound like questions
One of the most common things people do to undermine their credibility is end their sentences on a higher inflection than where they started.
It’s called ‘up-speak’ and our brains are trained to interpret that pattern as a question.
So instead of delivering information, you end up sounding like you’re asking if your own input is correct.
In a survey of 700 managers, 85 per cent considered up-speak to be a sign of insecurity and emotional weakness.
That’s one habit you should break right now to give yourself an instant credibility boost.
Don’t just give reports — tell stories
The most successful TED talks follow a magic formula — they are 75 per cent stories and 25 per cent back-up data.
Stories provide an emotional hook that helps people remember what you said, and they give you a platform for connecting your knowledge to the real world.
Encourage people to talk about themselves
When you first started dating, your mum probably encouraged you to get your dates to talk about themselves.
Sure, it’s good manners, but it turns out that there’s a scientific basis for this.
Your brain rewards you for self-disclosure. In fact, talking about yourself feels so good that it causes neurological changes in the brain.
So if you want people to pay attention to what you have to say, let them talk about themselves first.
Do your homework
One of the best ways to get people to take you seriously is to be prepared and know what you’re talking about.
Why are there so many unproductive meetings? Because people arrive at them unprepared.
Don’t be one of them. Whether it’s a team meeting or briefing your boss, always take the time to prepare.
Know what you want to say, be able to back up your opinions with data, and be prepared to answer questions two or three levels down.
Stay informed
The employee handbook for tech company, Valve says that it looks for ‘T-shaped’ employees.
These are people who have a lot of broad knowledge layered on top of their primary area of expertise.
Do whatever it takes to keep up with what’s going on in the world.
It’s particularly important to stay abreast of trends in science and technology, especially as they relate to business.
You don’t want to look like a deer in the headlights when somebody starts talking about how the Internet of Things is going to transform manufacturing.
Dress for success
Fair or not, we judge people on their appearances every single day.
We make inferences about a person’s character and capabilities based on appearance.
If your appearance is sloppy, for example, people are likely to subconsciously conclude that your work will be sloppy too.
Looking polished and well-groomed, on the other hand, creates the impression of responsibility and competence.
That doesn’t mean you have to blow your budget on a designer wardrobe, but it does mean you should show enough respect for yourself and for your colleagues to make a substantial effort.
Strike a power pose
If you assume an expansive pose — taking up more room by keeping your shoulders open and your arms wide — other people see you as more powerful.
This is a hard-wired human characteristic, just as people who have been blind since birth throw their arms out in victory, even though they’ve never seen someone do it.
Moreover, power poses actually change our body chemistry.
Researchers at Harvard found that after participants held a power pose for just two minutes, their levels of testosterone rose by 20 per cent and their cortisol (the stress hormone) levels dropped.
Power poses are a win-win: They make other people see you as more powerful, and they actually make you feel more powerful.
Be confident but not too confident
No one is going to have confidence in you until you have confidence in yourself.
However, you have to balance that confidence with a little humility.
Truly confident people aren’t afraid to admit that they don’t know everything — it doesn’t make them feel threatened at all.
The best way to show your confidence is to own what you know and what you don’t.
If you feel like you don’t get the respect you deserve at work, nobody can change that but you.
Sometimes people don’t take you seriously because of little things you don’t even realise you’re doing, and that’s something you can fix.
*Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the co-founder of TalentSmart. He can be contacted at TalentSmart.com.
This article first appeared on the TalentSmart website.
