Being territorial at work may be hurting you more than you think
“This is my spot” — Sheldon Cooper
A common theme I witnessed in my career is having people fight over work when there’s an abundance of work, projects, and tasks. People can intentionally be under utilizing their time but the moment something that seems shiny gets assigned to someone else, they get very territorial of the work, and don’t share the enthusiasm with their colleagues and celebrate their success.
This is deeply rooted in lacking a sense of security; a sense of security at work and the environment and a sense of security in one’s work and contribution. A company that lays off people every few months will create a sense of insecurity for employees if they feel they’re losing territory or work to someone else. A person who’s not doing their due diligence and is feeling insecure about the value of their contribution will also feel territorial and unhappy about someone else’s success.
The road to hell is paved with the best intentions — Abbot Bernard
Even though most people are not trying to harm anyone by being territorial at work, the truth is that are harming themselves and their reputation which might hinder their careers more than they suspect.
If you observe your environment at work for the people who you’d consider to be the most successful leaders, you’ll notice they probably share a lot of the following common attributes; they’re well communicators, they’re incredibly collaborative regardless of how uncomfortable they might be actually feeling, they’re diplomatic, they’re peace-makers who are talented at resolving conflict, and they celebrate the success of others.
None of the above qualities entail that those leaders don’t feel insecure about some aspects of themselves, it just means that at some level they’re much more aware of their insecurities and they’ve figured a way to embrace them and continue to work on themselves.
It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it — Benjamin Franklin
Reputation is obviously what people think of you, it’s not necessarily who you are. Even though philosophically we want to be believe that the opinions of others don’t matter, the reality of our three-dimensional world is that it does, and at work it matters a lot. Your reputation for being collaborative could be the reason you get a big project or a promotion, and your reputation for being insubordinate and territorial could be the reason you stagnate.
My advice in a few words sums up to this— Focus on the end result and act accordingly.
