“You will function better. It might not be at your current workplace though.”
This is what I told a prospective client the other day.
Three main blocks hinder ambitious professionals from thriving and advancing in their career:
1️⃣ fear – of reputation damage, loss of opportunity, and even rejection/marginalisation
2️⃣ lack of clarity – confusion about who you must be versus who you are
3️⃣ over-adaptation – the habits, solutions and even the strengths that prevent new behaviours.
Let me be clear: I am NOT saying “Be yourself and everything will work out.”
I contend that being yourself is how you function best — but your workplace may resist it.
People perform better when they are congruent with themselves.
Congruence arises from leaning into Relationship Friction and learning from its very discomfort.
Congruence arises from building out your Relationship Wisdom and gradually removing the relational distortions that prevent you from being authentic — with others naturally, but also within yourself so that you can consider the corporate system you live in with a clear eye.
Relationship Wisdom allows you to select your professional environment choicefully.
You may stay somewhere you can thrive and advance.
Or you may leave a system that tolerates behaviours you find unacceptable.
Relationship Wisdom does NOT fix toxic workplaces.
It does NOT get rid of harassment, favouritism, micromanagement or gaslighting.
Relationship Wisdom enables you to see what toxic looks like in your workplace.
Then it empowers you to craft a strategy to stay or leave and find a better place for you.
I worked in investment banking for 24 years. I lived through it all: the hours, the sexism, the obligation to be available late into the night and on weekends. Holidays were cancelled. Textbook toxic. So why did I stay? The exciting work. And the money. Yes, the money. The point is this: why you choose to stay is for you to know — not for others to judge. I stayed knowingly.
Do you know why you are staying?
PS: this post is dedicated to C.
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📧 alexandra@coachingforinspiration.com
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