Many are skeptical about the returns of civility. A quarter believe that they will be less leader-like, and nearly 40 percent are afraid that they’ll be taken advantage of if they are nice at work. Nearly half think that it is better to flex one’s muscles to garner power. They are jockeying for position in a competitive workplace and don’t want to put themselves at a disadvantage.
Why is respect — or lack of it — so potent? Charles Horton Cooley’s 1902 notion of the “looking glass self” explains that we use others’ expressions (smiles), behaviors (acknowledging us) and reactions (listening to us or insulting us) to define ourselves. How we believe others see us shapes who we are. We ride a wave of pride or get swallowed in a sea of embarrassment based on brief interactions that signal respect or disrespect. Individuals feel valued and powerful when respected. Civility lifts people. Incivility holds people down. It makes people feel small.
Incivility often grows out of ignorance, not malice. A surgeon told me that until he received some harsh feedback, he was clueless that so many people thought he was a jerk. He was simply treating residents the way he had been trained.
Technology distracts us. We’re wired to our smartphones. It’s increasingly challenging to be present and to listen. It’s tempting to fire off texts and emails during meetings; to surf the Internet while on conference calls or in classes; and, for some, to play games rather than tune in. While offering us enormous conveniences, electronic communication also leads to misunderstandings. It’s easy to misread intentions. We can take out our frustrations, hurl insults and take people down a notch from a safe distance.
Although in surveys people say they are afraid they will not rise in an organization if they are really friendly and helpful, the civil do succeed. . . What about the jerks who seem to succeed despite being rude and thoughtless? Those people have succeeded despite their incivility, not because of it. . . . Sooner or later, uncivil people sabotage their success — or at least their potential. Payback may come immediately or when they least expect it, and it may be intentional or unconscious.
Given the enormous cost of incivility, it should not be ignored. We all need to reconsider our behavior. You are always in front of some jury. In every interaction, you have a choice: Do you want to lift people up or hold them down?
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| There's Carrie! |
“The main characteristic of an alpha male wolf,” the veteran wolf researcher Rick McIntyre told me as we were watching gray wolves, “is a quiet confidence, quiet self-assurance. You know what you need to do; you know what’s best for your pack. You lead by example. You’re very comfortable with that. You have a calming effect.”
The point is, alpha males are not aggressive. They don’t need to be. “Think of an emotionally secure man, or a great champion. Whatever he needed to prove is already proven,” he said.
Strength impresses us. But kindness is what we remember best.
The second you land, you check your cellphone and are greeted by a flood of messages. After an hour sitting in your hotel room replying to work emails, you finally go to the beach.
You pull out your iPad to read a book and, oh, look: You have a message on Facebook, not to mention WhatsApp, Snapchat and Twitter.
And because the beach is so beautiful, it’s probably a good idea to take an Instagram. After a hundred attempts to capture the best and most original photo of a beach ever taken, you spend another hour seeing how many “likes” your photo got.
More messages come in. You end up getting stressed about all the work emails you have to respond to back at the hotel.
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But I don’t think people should wait until vacation to unplug.
In recent months, I’ve started deleting some social media apps from my phone on weekends. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are removed entirely on Friday afternoons. On Monday morning, I reinstall everything for the workweek ahead.
If you still can’t stop yourself from logging on and checking in after all this, I have only one piece of advice left. Dunk your devices in water and replace them with an old yellow Sony Discman.
