10 Traits That Will Kill Your Career

10 Traits That Will Kill Your CareerYou know the basic rules dont lie or cheat or embezzle from the company. But there are a few character flaws and personal patterns or habits that could also seriously hinder your progredienzand even kill your career. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display(div-gpt-ad-1467144145037-0) ) Most people dont even realize theyre doing themselves or their careers harm until its far too late. And most careers arent impacted by one big mistake or one cringeworthy comment. It happens little by little, in ways you might leid expect. So keep an eye out for these subtle traits and traps that could already be bringing you down.1. NarcissismIf youre just thinking about yourself and how you can succeed, thats self-absorption in the highest. Youll go farther in your career if you consider how to help the company get aheadand the company is made of people. Its bedrngnis all about you. Focus on being a better team player. In a rising tide, all boats rise.2. D ishonestyIt doesnt have to be one big whopper to count as lying. In fact, its often the smaller fibs around the edges that create a pattern making for a person a boss would likely write off as dishonest. Cultivate honesty as a virtue and a character trait. Be tactful, but not obsequious. Have the courage to accept responsibility when things are your fault. And keep your mouth shutdont spread rumors about your coworkers or friends.3.Making False PromisesYou either over-promise or under-deliver, but either way, youre falling short of expectations and failing to do what you said youd accomplish. Set reasonable, achievable goals for yourself. Make promises only that youre certain you can keep. That way, if you get mora done faster, you can give your boss a pleasant surprise instead of having to underperform.4. ComplacencyOtherwise known as laziness. When was the last time you learned a new skill or took a refresher or other training course? When was the last time you certified yourself in something new? Or really dug into industry research to keep yourself on the cutting edge? If you dont grow, you wont be challenged and you wont change. And youll never get ahead.5. PessimismNobody likes a Debbie Downer. If you find yourself focusing more on the negative side of everything, dont be surprised when no one wants to work with youand your boss doesnt particularly want to see you succeed.6. ApathyEven worse than being negative or pessimistic is being apathetic. If you cant bring yourself to care one way or the other, how can you expect anyone to trust you or want to work with you? Even if you hate your job, give it your best and move on. Otherwise youll be stuck, youll get a bad reputation, and youll never get ahead.7. Fear of changeKeep your eye on the prize, the big picture. Weigh your daily and monthly priorities against your long-term goals. And dont be afraid of changes in your company or industry. Learn to be adaptable. Roll with the tides. Dont ever hear yourself saying, But weve always done it this way. Learn to grow and adapt as things progressand keep your biggest dreams in the back of your mind at all times. Be flexible. Embrace the ever-changing nature of the working world.8. EgoYou get a little success, it goes to your head, and all of a sudden youre the star of every show. Youre arrogant. Full of yourself. Cocky. Youre doing nothing but setting yourself up for a rather painful failure.9. InsecurityWhether this manifests as meekness, arrogance, envy, pessimism, oversensitivity it doesnt matter. Do what you have to do to be more confident in your own abilities and career position. Go to therapy. This trait makes a negative impact across all areas of your lifenot just your job. And its not a good enough excuse for the behavior it tends to cause.10. Sucking upNobody likes a brown-noser. Youre not showing real respect or building a relationship youre a big phony going about things the underhanded way. Earn your bosss respect the honest wa y. Prove your merit. Help your team. Show dont tell.Once youve got all of this down,the next step is to make sure you dont let any of your biases impact your decisions. In order to effectively develop your career, its important to admit you have biases and learn to correct them. The more objective you are, the better your decisions will be.

Is The Tone of Your Voice Holding Your Career Back

Is The Tone of Your Voice Holding Your Career Back Patriarchy has always strived to strip women of our voices. But as we make headway in the workplace and witness more women claim leadership roles, were no longer judged by merely what we say, but also by how we say it.Best-selling feminist author Naomi Wolf fueled a firestorm in July when she published an open letter to millennial women. Young women, give up the vocal fry, and reclaim your strong female voice, she wrote.What is vocal fry? And why are we asking women to apologize for it?Known among linguistics as creaky voice, vocal fry is a specific type of phonation caused by slackening the vocal cords. In regular speech, the vocal cords vibrate to release a steady stream of air, but in vocal fry, the lax cords vibrate irregularly and thus flap open and closed so the air is instead released in audible spurts.Commentators have notlageed the Kardashians, Britney Spears, and Zooey Deschanel for their infamously creaky voices. But while both men and women alike use vocal fry, its largely women who are criticized unfairly for it.Sure, a 2011 study found that two-thirds of a small sample of college women use vocal fry, and American youth deem it virtually irrelevant in fact, a 2010 study found that a bulk of young people have a generally favorable impression of women who speak with creaky voices. But while the speech impediment doesnt seem to faze them, it could actually be hurting womens job prospects, according to a more recent study published in the online journal PLOS.This study conducted by Duke University researchers Rindy C. Anderson, Casey A. Klofstad, William J. Mayew and Mohan Venkatachalam and supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation suggests that women who use vocal fry sound less competent, less trustworthy, less educated and less hire-able. Its another voice mannerism like run-on sentences, breathiness, and uptalk, which is the tendency to dilute sentences with questions, that under mine womens authority.The researchers asked seven young men and seven young women to say the phrase, Thank you for considering me for this opportunity, in both a normal tone and in vocal fry. Then, 800 men and women of a variety of ages were invited through an online survey to listen to the samples and select which speaker (normal or fry) they found to be more educated, competent, trustworthy, attractive and appealing as a job candidate.For each trait, the listeners preferred the normal voice to the fry voice, regardless of the speakers genders. The respondents were less likely to say theyd want to hire the person with the fry voice, particularly because they found them to be less trustworthy. They also preferred a normal voice 86 percent of the time for female speakers and 83 percent of the time for male speakers when taking hiring someone into consideration.Likewise, women using fry were viewed more negatively than men using vocal fry, and, in general, negative perceptions were st ronger when the listener was a woman.Researchers suspect that women may be disproportionately penalized for using vocal fry merely because theyre expected to, biologically, have higher voices. In fact, back in 2013 Slate noted that older men, who are typically in power positions over young women, find vocal fry intensely irritating.SlateLexicon Valley podcaster (and NPROn the Mediahost) Bob Garfieldcomplained Something happens to their voice, as if they have a catch in their throat.Over the course of the 26-minute podcast, Garfield describes the speech pattern as vulgar, repulsive, mindless, annoying and really annoying. I want the oil to stop frying, Garfield said. I want someone to wave a magic wand over a significant portion of the American public i.e. women and have the frying come to an end.For women, however, vocal fry is quite the conundrum to come to an end with it may be easier said than done because it may actually be a subconscious retort to the entrenched understanding of our other speech mannerisms society would call inadequacies. A wealth of research suggests that individuals with deeper voices are perceived as more dominant and are more successful at obtaining leadership roles so perhaps women drop their voices to guttural levels to demonstrate strength, confidence and thus competency. We live in a world in which were told we should speak like men to get ahead, and then adversely hindered for doing just that.A 2011 study, The Myth of the Ideal Worker Does Doing All the Right Things Really Get Women Ahead? published in Catalyst, found that self-advocacy skills actually correlate with workplace status and pay more directly than merit itself. So, speaking well for oneself is a bigger facilitator to faring well in the workplace than working hard.For example, science would support Hillary Clintons loss to Donald Trump in the presidential elections, as commentators continuously criticized her voice. Experts have delved into the nuances behind her al legedly annoying voice and also into the many ways her credentials were compromised because of her patterns of speech.Perhaps, then, the conversation should not be focused on speech but, rather, statusnot who we allow to use vocal fry, but instead who we allow to obtain power.--AnnaMarie Houlis is a multimedia journalist and an adventure aficionado with a keen cultural curiosity and an affinity for solo travel. Shes an editor by day and a travel blogger at HerReport.org by night.