Quit selling yourself short

 

 

Dear Debra: My boss singled me out for praise I deserved. To be humble, I “shared” the glory with a co-worker who did only a fraction of the work. Now he, not me, is joining my boss at a department briefing on my project.

Weigh whether you can elegantly set the record straight with your boss. But the next time someone says, “Great job,” don’t hesitate; say, “Thank you. I worked hard. I appreciate your comments.”

This is what happened to my client, Liz: When her firm won a big assignment due to Liz’s work, she told her boss that, “We all worked on it, it was a team effort, the usual ‘girl’ stuff.” But she “felt like crap for not taking credit.”

When she got back to her desk, she e-mailed her boss saying, “I don’t know why I couldn’t tell you this, but the truth is, I spearheaded that project.” The result? He reiterated that it was a great job and Liz “felt a million times better.”

– Dr. Debra Condren is a coach, speaker and author of “Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word.”

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