Are You a People Pleaser? How It Impacts Your Career and How to Break Free
An Overview of People Pleasing Behavior
ALISON BEARD: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Alison Beard.
Recognizing People Pleasing in the Workplace
ALISON BEARD: I’d love to start with your definition of people pleaser. What does it mean to you?
HAILEY MAGEE: So in the book, I define people pleasing as the act of putting others’ needs, feelings, wants and dreams first at the expense of your own needs, feelings, wants and dreams. So it’s not just being kind and generous, but it’s sacrificing yourself in the process of doing so.
Consequences of People Pleasing and How to Navigate Away from It
ALISON BEARD: And do most people pleasers realize that they’re doing it or do they need help recognizing that this description fits them?
Setting Boundaries in the Workplace as a People Pleaser
ALISON BEARD: How does controlling what I can control translate into other people changing their behavior so that they’re not making demands of me that will tempt me back into people pleasing?
Practical Solutions for Breaking the People Pleasing Pattern
ALISON BEARD: Let’s move to solutions. You argue that people can break themselves of this habit. Where do they start?
Impact of Overcoming People Pleasing in Professional and Personal Life
HAILEY MAGEE: Yeah, for most of my clients, what I do actually end up seeing is that the efforts we make to break people pleasing patterns in our relationships with friends and family and at home do often translate into the workplace. Because what’s happening here is there’s this fundamental restructuring of how we exist in the world.
Advice for Bosses and Colleagues of People Pleasers
ALISON BEARD: So what’s your advice to a boss who maybe suspects that some of the people on their team are people pleasers and might benefit from it, might not know how to change it? What’s the case for them to reach out and how might they help the person shift?
Starting Early: Tips for New Hires in Setting Boundaries
ALISON BEARD: What advice do you have for people just starting their career or just starting over in a new job? How do you make the right impression as someone who’s easy to work with and will be a great colleague, but also won’t be walked all over?
Gaining Self-Trust by Overcoming People Pleasing
HAILEY MAGEE: And now having done a lot of this work, I’m not fully healed. There are definitely still areas where this comes up for me but fundamentally, I trust that when I have a strong need or when a situation feels untenable or unsupportive or unhealthy, I know that in that moment, even though I might be nervous or afraid or self-doubting, I will find a way to speak up and make sure I’m standing up for myself and having my own back in those moments.
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