How to Brag About Yourself at Work
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Here's your Money Briefing for Thursday, June 27th. I'm Arianna Espuru for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for J.R. Whelan. You might be so worried about coming off as a bragger at work that you downplay that successful presentation or bury your excitement about a promotion. But it turns out that hiding your achievements can also create problems.
By not just being upfront with those colleagues, it's a real issue. Like people don't really want to collaborate with that person in the future because they don't see them as being this trustworthy person. So it's really important for us to actually just be honest and open when we have achieved something that we're proud of.
So how do you successfully brag at work without feeling bad about it? David Robson is a WSJ contributor and author of The Laws of Connection, The Scientific Secrets of Building a Strong Social Network.
He joins me after the break.
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There can be a balance between celebrating yourself at work and avoiding being labeled as a jerk. WSJ contributor David Robson recently wrote an essay about how to brag at work. And he joins me now. David, let's be honest. People are so slow to boast and brag about their achievements at work, even when they might deserve some attention. Why is that?
It's just been part of our culture for hundreds of years. So you have the 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal, who said, if you want people to think well of you, don't speak well of yourself.
Why do people avoid bragging about achievements at work?
And, you know, that's really been incorporated into so many etiquette guides. And we've all been taught by our parents, no one likes a show off. So we really do this instinctually. We're really scared of being seen as being a braggart. And that's a real shame because the psychology suggests that actually hiding our successes comes with some quite serious costs.
How can downplaying these achievements actually backfire on you?
It really can be seen as being quite insulting, actually. So we've got some really good research from people like Annabel Roberts at the University of Chicago, and she did a series of studies. So people might be asked to imagine, say, that their sibling had achieved a new promotion or got this amazing bonus at work. But the next time that you saw them, they didn't actually tell you this, and you only found out about that success through your mother. People suspect that the intention for that would be fairly honourable, like you don't want to be seen to be boasting. But if you feel that you've been on the receiving end of that false modesty, it feels insulting because it's as if that person doesn't trust you not to act like this kind of spoilt brat who's just going to throw a tantrum because they're so envious and so resentful of your success.
And no one wants to be treated in that way. It's very paternalistic. It's very condescending. It suggests this lack of trust that we do find offensive.
And how does that translate to your achievements at work? Like, how do you talk about that with your coworkers?
At work, I think this is especially a problem. So Annabel Roberts had also looked at situations like where someone's been given this kind of promotion or they've got this new placement that they really wanted to achieve. And they might have been competing with some of their colleagues. But by not just being upfront with those colleagues, it's a real issue. Like people don't really want to collaborate with that person in the future because they don't see them as being this trustworthy person. So it's really important for us to actually just be honest and open when we have achieved something that we're proud of.
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