Member-only story
Being Good at Your Job Is Not Enough
You can be excellent at your work and still limit your own career.
The higher you climb, the more soft skills, executive presence, and emotional intelligence outweigh pure output.
Being difficult to collaborate with quietly caps leadership potential. I know this because I made many of these mistakes myself before reaching the VP level. The good news is that most of them are easy to correct once you see them clearly.
The Subtle Ways People Become Hard to Work With
Three patterns show up repeatedly.
First, some people respond to every request for help by listing blockers and constraints. They make collaboration feel impossible. What they intend as thoroughness reads as rigidity.
Second, tone and facial expression matter. Talking to colleagues in a way that implies they are not smart — or letting your face say it for you — erodes trust quickly, whether in one-on-ones or group meetings.
Third, overly long communication has become epidemic. Many people now paste lengthy AI outputs into emails and Slack messages. The person who stays succinct stands out immediately.
All three habits are fixable. Awareness is usually enough to begin changing them.
