Welcome to the mini-series about how to get promoted in the workplace! We discussed three keys already. First, likeability. If people don’t like you, they’ll not trust you, and they certainly won’t promote you. But likeability is not personality; it’s character. It’s behavior. It’s how you choose to relate to other people.
Second is capacity. Capacity is the potential for growth and the desire to keep learning. If you have capacity, then you can increase in competence and you can handle greater responsibility in your work.
Third, reliability. It is earning the trust of others by always keeping your promises and fulfilling your responsibilities, even if it requires sacrifice.
Today we’ll discuss the fourth key: loyalty.
Loyalty is a quality that is in short supply in our society today. It seems like nobody is loyal to anything anymore. There’s no such thing as brand loyalty. And most people aren’t loyal to companies or bosses or leaders or vice versa. They’re loyal to themselves.
Loyalty is an old-fashioned quality. But when a person exhibits a rare quality like loyalty, that person gets promoted. It makes you stand out!
Loyalty, whether it’s to your boss or someone else, is being faithful when difficulty tests your commitment.
One of the keys to loyalty is you don’t talk about your boss behind their back. When you do, that’s disloyalty. Another word for it is gossip.
You already know that there are no secrets in a workplace. Quickest way to get something to spread is to say this is confidential. Why? Because knowledge is power. And people like to think they have power by sharing knowledge with other people that they’re not supposed to share it with. So, if you’re talking about your boss, they already know it.
Do you know that in most of the United States, it is a crime to accept stolen goods? The penalty for accepting or buying goods you know are stolen, ripped off, pirated is the same penalty as the person who stole it.
Gossip deals in stolen goods. It’s stolen information, it’s stolen reputation. When you accept it, you are as guilty as the gossiper. By the way, people who gossip to you will also gossip about you. So you don’t want to get involved in it.
You want to be loyal. Loyal people don’t gossip.
Of course, it’s easy to be loyal when everything is going great, when we’re not having to lay anybody off, when there’re tons of money and we’re making a great profit and things are going well, everybody’s happy.
But when the ship goes into the storm, that’s when real loyalty comes out. Real friends walk in when everybody else walks out. And when you’re down, truly loyal people don’t kick you. Loyal people are there not just in good and easy times, they’re there in bad times. That makes them stand out.
Excerpt taken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren.